Disasterpastor45

Duncan Smith: RBS bonus veto could have caused chaos

2012-01-29T06:03:00.000-05:00

29 January 2012 Last updated at 05:38 ET

Duncan Smith: RBS bonus veto could have caused chaos

Mr Hester was appointed after RBS was bailed out by the taxpayer

Iain Duncan Smith has said there could have been "chaos" if ministers had overruled the board of RBS and vetoed a £963,000 share bonus for its boss.

The government has come under pressure to act over Stephen Hester's bonus, as it owns 82% of the bank's shares.
Cabinet Minister Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC "nobody would be happier" than ministers if Mr Hester had declined it.
But it had been up to the RBS board - if they had quit, it would have had a huge impact, Mr Duncan Smith added.
Mr Hester took over as the Royal Bank of Scotland's chief executive in 2008 to replace Sir Fred Goodwin, after the bank had to be bailed out by the government.
'Can't interfere' Work and Pensions Secretary Mr Duncan Smith told BBC One's Andrew Marr programme that ministers had made it "very clear" to the board that they should take into consideration public concern, and that the bonus - to be paid in shares in 2014 - could be clawed back if he did not perform well.
He said Mr Hester's contract, drawn up under the previous Labour government, meant "the board takes the decision on this" and ministers could not "interfere and tell them what to do".
"If we didn't like that, of course the only option would be to get rid of the board. If you do that, imagine what would happen in the banking sector and imagine what would happen to RBS. You would have chaos.
"Remember RBS's balance sheet is as large, if not slightly larger, than the GDP of the UK. What would that do to ordinary people?"
He said the government had to get the bank to a point where it could be sold and the taxpayer repaid.
He said it was for Mr Hester "individually" to decide whether or not to take the bonus.
"As a member of the government, I don't have a collective opinion on that, but I must say to you: nobody would be happier than the government if he took such decisions. But it's up to him."

Updated:With Police Attack Video-Occupy Oakland: Livestream of March and Police Response

2012-01-29T05:39:00.000-05:00

heyandy889 Nate S

This video from @OakFoSho showed me more context for OccOak. Flashes+ on "unlawful assembly" but I heard warning.

300 arrested in daylong Occupy Oakland protests

2012-01-29T05:30:00.003-05:00

300 arrested in daylong Occupy Oakland protests

By TERRY COLLINS The Associated Press
Updated: 2:36 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012
Published: 12:41 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012
About 300 people were arrested Saturday during a chaotic day of Occupy protests that saw demonstrators break into City Hall and burn an American flag, as police earlier fired tear gas and bean bags to disperse hundreds of people after some threw rocks and bottles and tore down fencing outside a nearby convention center.
Dozens of police officers remained on guard outside City Hall around midnight following the most turbulent day of protests since November, when Oakland police forcefully dismantled an Occupy encampment. An exasperated Mayor Jean Quan, who faced heavy criticism for the police action last fall, called on the Occupy movement to "stop using Oakland as its playground."
"People in the community and people in the Occupy movement have to stop making excuses for this behavior," Quan said.
Protesters clashed with police throughout the day, at times throwing rocks, bottles and other objects at officers. And police responded by deploying smoke, tear gas and bean bag rounds, City Administrator Deanna Santanta said.
"These demonstrators stated their intention was to provoke officers and engage in illegal activity and that's exactly what has occurred today," Santana said.
Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said about 300 arrests were made.
The group assembled outside City Hall late Saturday morning and marched through the streets, disrupting traffic as they threatened to take over the vacant Henry Kaiser Convention Center.
The protesters walked to the vacant convention center, where some started tearing down perimeter fencing and "destroying construction equipment" shortly before 3 p.m., police said.
Police said they issued a dispersal order and used smoke and tear gas after some protesters pelted them with bottles, rocks, burning flares and other objects.
The number of demonstrators swelled as the day wore on, with afternoon estimates ranging from about 1,000 to 2,000 people.
A majority of the arrests came after police took scores of protesters into custody as they marched through the city's downtown, with some entering a YMCA building, said Sgt. Jeff Thomason, a police spokesman.
Around the same time police were taking people into custody near the YMCA, about dozens of officers surrounded City Hall, while others swept the inside of the building looking for protesters who had broken into the building, then ran out of the building with American flags before officers arrived.
The protest group issued an email criticizing police, saying "Occupy Oakland's building occupation, an act of constitutionally protected civil disobedience was disrupted by a brutal police response today."
Michael Davis, 32, who is originally from Ohio and was in the Occupy movement in Cincinnati, said Saturday was a very hectic day that originally started off calm but escalated when police began using "flash bangs, tear gas, smoke grenades and bean bags."
"It was very emotional. I thought it was a very good day for the movement because it brought us back together," Davis said. "We all were here in spirit and everybody actually helped everyone today.
"What could've been handled differently is the way the Oakland police came at us," Davis said. "We were peaceful."
Quan blamed the destruction on a small "very radical, violent" splinter group within Occupy Oakland.
"This is not a situation where we had a 1,000 peaceful people and a few violent people. If you look at what's happening today in terms of destructing property, throwing at and charging the police, it's almost like they are begging for attention and hoping that the police will make an error."
Quan said that at one point, many forced their way into City Hall, where they burned flags, broke an electrical box and damaged several art structures, including a recycled art exhibit created by children.
"City Hall is closed for the weekend. There is no excuse for behavior we've witnessed this evening," City Council President Larry Reid said during a news briefing Saturday. "It's just unacceptable and makes absolutely no sense for the type of behavior we've seen on the streets in the city of Oakland today."
Oakland Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, echoed Reid's sentiments and said that what was going on amounts to "domestic terrorism."
"This is domestic terrorism and we cannot allow this to continue because something even more worse could really happen," De La Fuente said.
The demonstration comes after Occupy protesters said earlier this week that they planned to move into a vacant building and turn it into a social center and political hub. They also threatened to try to shut down the port, occupy the airport and take over City Hall.
Oakland officials said Friday that since the Occupy Oakland encampment was first established in late October, police have arrested about 300 people.
The national Occupy Wall Street movement, which denounces corporate excess and economic inequality, began in New York City in the fall but has been largely dormant lately.
Oakland, New York and Los Angeles were among the cities with the largest and most vocal Occupy protests early on. The demonstrations ebbed after those cities used force to move out hundreds of demonstrators who had set up tent cities.
In Oakland, the police department received heavy criticism for using force to break up earlier protests. Among the critics was Mayor Jean Quan, who said she wasn't briefed on the department's plans.
On Saturday, Quan seemed to have changed her tune on how police have been handling the demonstrations and protests.
"Our officers have been very measured," Quan said. "Were there some mistakes made? There may be. I would say the Oakland police and our allies, so far a small percentage of mistakes. "But quite frankly, a majority of protesters who were charging the police were clearly not being peaceful.
Earlier this month, a court-appointed monitor submitted a report to a federal judge that included "serious concerns" about the department's handling of the Occupy protests.
Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said late Saturday that he was in "close contact" with the federal monitor during the protests.
Quan added, "If the demonstrators think that because we are working more closely with the monitor now that we won't do what we have to do to uphold the law and try keep people safe in this city, they're wrong."
___
January 29, 2012 03:36 AM EST

BBC - Occupy Protests: Clashes at march in US city of Oakland

2012-01-29T05:25:00.000-05:00

Occupy Protests: Clashes at march in US city of Oakland

Occupy protesters burned the US flag outside Oakland's City Hall

More than 100 Occupy protesters have been arrested in the US city of Oakland after trying to enter the City Hall and a convention centre.

Police fired tear gas and smoke grenades to disperse crowds who threw rocks, bottles and other objects.
The Californian port city was the scene of similar clashes last October. In December, protesters occupied the port.
Oakland is one of several US cities to see mass protests over economic inequality and corporate greed.
The movement began with Occupy Wall Street in New York last year and has since spread.
The local offshoot, Occupy Oakland, had earlier called on protesters to join a weekend of action, saying 28 January would be "Move-in Day", and they would "occupy a large, vacant building and convert it into a social center".
The protest march - joined by as many as 2,000 people over the course of the day - moved first to the empty Henry Kaiser convention centre, police said.
Some started tearing down perimeter fencing and "destroying construction equipment", the Associated Press quotes the police as saying.
When protesters ignored an order to leave, they were dispersed using tear gas and smoke, police added. In response, officers were pelted with bottles, rocks, burning flames and other objects.
Demonstrators also broke into City Hall and a nearby YMCA building in the centre of Oakland, police said.
One post on Occupy Oakland's Twitter feed later read: "We didn't get in the building, but fought like our future depended on it."
Oakland police said in a statement that, while the city "welcomes peaceful forms of assembly and freedom of speech... acts of violence, property destruction and overnight lodging will not be tolerated".

Private Snoops Find GPS Trail Legal to Follow

2012-01-29T05:12:00.001-05:00

January 28, 2012

Private Snoops Find GPS Trail Legal to Follow

By ERIK ECKHOLM

Only yesterday it was the exotic stuff of spy shows: flip on a computer and track the enemy’s speeding car.

But today, anyone with $300 can compete with Jack Bauer. Online, and soon in big-box stores, you can buy a device no bigger than a cigarette pack, attach it to a car without the driver’s knowledge and watch the vehicle’s travels — and stops — at home on your laptop.

Tens of thousands of Americans are already doing just that, with little oversight, for purposes as seemingly benign as tracking an elderly parent with dementia or a risky teenage driver, or as legally and ethically charged as spying on a spouse or an employee — or for outright criminal stalking.

The advent of Global Positioning System tracking devices has been a boon to law enforcement, making it easier and safer, for example, for agents to link drug dealers to kingpins.

Last Monday, in a decision seen as a first step toward setting boundaries for law enforcement, the Supreme Court held that under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, placing a GPS tracker on a vehicle is a search. Police departments around the country say they will be more likely to seek judicial approval before using the devices, if they were not already doing so.

Still, sales of GPS trackers to employers and individuals, for a multitude of largely unregulated uses, are growing fast, raising new questions about privacy and a legal system that has not kept pace with technology. This easy tool for recording a person’s every move is a powerful one that, when misused, amounts to “electronic stalking,” in the words of one private investigator.

“That, to the victim, is just as terrifying as seeing your face in the window at night before they go to bed,” said the investigator, John J. Nazarian, who heads an investigation agency based in Los Angeles.

So many suspicious spouses are now doing their own spying, a private investigator in New Jersey said, that his infidelity business is declining.

In the absence of legislation in most states, putting a GPS device on a spouse’s car, or hiring an investigator to do so, is widely considered to be legal if the person placing it shares ownership of the car. But some privacy experts question this standard, and there is little to stop a jealous suitor, or an abusive man trying to prevent a battered woman from escaping, from doing the same.

GPS trackers are increasingly being cited in cases of criminal stalking and civil violations of privacy.

One increasing use of GPS tracking — by as many as 30,000 parents, one seller estimates — is to monitor the driving habits of teenagers; some devices even send a text message when the car goes over a certain speed.

Jimmie Mesis, a private investigator in New Jersey who, with his wife, Rosemarie, publishes PI Magazine and also sells devices through a company called PIgear, recalled a couple whose 17-year-old daughter had a drug problem and would disappear for hours at a time. Worried that she might overdose, they placed a tracker on her car. When they saw that she was visiting the same house repeatedly, they informed the police, who raided the drug den.

Also rising is the placement of devices in the cars or pockets of elderly parents with dementia. Mr. Mesis said one client with an erratic 86-year-old father discovered that he had driven to the southern end of the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, and they were able to retrieve him.

Even if done legally and out of concern for family members, the covert use of GPS devices poses ethical questions. “To have this as a routine tool strikes me as pretty chilling,” said Jonathan Zittrain, professor of law and computer science at Harvard University. “We are talking about partners and spouses, not pets.”

“It cuts into someone’s autonomy to know where they are all the time and not give them the opportunity to opt out,” he said.

Rick Johnson, a private investigator in Denver, recalled two recent cases in which women who were going through divorces hired him because they believed that their husbands were following them. He found GPS trackers on their cars and removed them.

“It scared the hell out of these women,” Mr. Johnson said.

Sales of GPS trackers to private individuals may have already surpassed more than 100,000 per year, some experts believe. The marketing is just getting started.

Danny Burnham, the general manager of InTouch MVC in Lakeland, Fla., said that he was negotiating with Best Buy, Radio Shack and Brookstone and that he hoped to be selling trackers in the big retailers before the end of the year. The devices will be described as safety tools, but no one can be sure of buyers’ intentions.

“Selling a tracking device is similar to selling a firearm: you don’t ask what they are going to use it for, and what they do with it is entirely out of our control,” said Brad Borst, the owner of Rocky Mountain Tracking in Fort Collins, Colo. His company sells GPS devices online, including a 4-inch-by-2.5-inch model called the Ghost Rider, for $349, that can, with a waterproof box and magnet ($30), be hidden under a vehicle.

One Los Angeles man who went through a nasty divorce said he used zip ties to attach a similar device to the car his wife was driving, which was registered in his name. He suspected that his wife, who had said she had health issues and could not work, was giving false testimony.

“I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, and then I got that thing,” the man said. “It showed the car at the place of business. It showed that she was going out to nice restaurants. It showed she was living a lifestyle above what she had when she split up with me.”

The man confronted his wife but never told her how he learned of her lies. In the divorce case, he said, “it was a major tool in saving my assets.”

The most pervasive use of the devices is by companies that track fleets of vehicles or high-value shipments. But company detectives have also been making covert use of GPS devices to follow employees suspected of theft or malingering.

Paul J. Ciolino, whose Chicago-based investigation firm specializes in corporate work, recalled following an employee of one company who turned out to be playing golf every day. “He’d sit in the clubhouse and fill out expense reports for places he never went.”

Some devices plug in under the dashboard and are powered by the car battery; others have batteries for covert placement. They establish position through satellite signals, then report via cellphone towers to a central computer; customers, who pay perhaps $20 a month, log in to the server.

“To follow someone in a city like Los Angeles, law enforcement use 10 to 12 cars and even a helicopter, and even then they can still lose them,” said Mr. Nazarian, the Los Angeles private investigator. “With this device, you apply it in 10 minutes, go have dinner, have a drink, then go see everywhere that car went, how long they stayed there. It’s absolutely the cat’s meow.”

California and Texas, unlike most states, ban many uses of GPS trackers without consent, with exceptions for law enforcement and car owners. Many private investigators said they followed the same rules to minimize the risks of civil litigation — that a tracked person could sue for violation of privacy.

Niall Cronnolly, the president of Eagle Investigative Services, based in Atlanta, said his company uses GPS trackers in about half of the 3,000 to 5,000 cases it handles each year. Most involve suspicious spouses, he said, but sometimes employers track suspect workers. Mr. Cronnolly said the company uses the devices only when clients are married or engaged to the target, or for employers only when the suspect is driving a company car.

“So in a sense,” he said, “it’s like putting a GPS device on your own car.”

Reporting was contributed by Jess Bidgood from Boston, Robbie Brown from Atlanta, Dan Frosch from Denver, Ian Lovett from Los Angeles and Steven Yaccino from Chicago.

Paul Sakuma/Associated Press

Yasir Afifi of San Jose, Calif., showing where he found a GPS device the police had put on his car.

Online, and soon in big-box stores, you can buy a device no bigger than a cigarette pack, attach it to a car without the driver's knowledge and watch the vehicle's travels - and stops - at home on your laptop.

Danny Burnham, the general manager of InTouch MVC in Lakeland, Fla., said that he was negotiating with Best Buy, Radio Shack and Brookstone and that he hoped to be selling trackers in the big retailers before the end of the year. The devices will be described as safety tools, but no one can be sure of buyers’ intentions.

Raymond McCrea Jones for The New York Times

Niall Cronnolly, a private investigator in Atlanta, demonstrating how he can monitor a car with a GPS tracker.

Justices Say GPS Tracker Violated Privacy Rights (January 24, 2012)
Times Topic: Global Positioning System

The man confronted his wife but never told her how he learned of her lies. In the divorce case, he said, “it was a major tool in saving my assets.”

“So in a sense,” he said, “it’s like putting a GPS device on your own car.”

DB - Scene at the YMCA in Oakland

2012-01-29T05:01:00.002-05:00

disasterpastor Eric Bentsen

Scene at the YMCA in Oakland dailybooth.com/disasterpastor…

Police Clash With Occupy Oakland on 'Move-In Day,' Tear Gas Deployed

2012-01-29T04:54:00.000-05:00

Police Clash With Occupy Oakland on 'Move-In Day,' Tear Gas Deployed

A flash/smoke bomb going off outside the Oakland Museum,

where there is currently an exhibit about 1968.(Steve Rhodes)

It was "Move-In Day" for Occupy Oakland today, and as we type protesters have once again met with riot-cop resistance in the form of barricades, smoke bombs, and tear gas as they were attempting to occupy the historic but long underused Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center on Lake Merritt. Oakland North reports via Twitter that a crowd of at least 300 had gathered at noon at Frank Ogawa Plaza — including people with children — and began a march toward the undisclosed location, which Occupy Oakland organizers had previously said would be a building they would occupy as their political hub and "social center."
The march started peacefully enough, with protesters chanting "Solidarity forever. The movement makes us strong," and "We are people. We are not illegal," and playing Tupac's "California Love" on some mobile speakers.
But as the crowd moved toward the intended occupation target, the convention center, on 10th Street not far from the Oakland Museum, the standoff began. Some Twitterers allege that ABC 7's aerial feed went black before the smoke bombs and tear gas started being deployed, and of course people are alarmed because of the number of children in the crowd.
The convention center has been, for the past decade, the site of one of the city's most visible homeless encampments. The homeless only relocated recently after construction crews moved in to remove the 12th Street Dam connecting Lake Merritt to the Estuary, and an improvement project began in the adjacent park.
We'll update you as we learn more.
Update: This guy is doing a live UStream — he says he got tear-gassed, but not too badly because the wind was blowing the right way. Most protesters appear to be headed back to Frank Ogawa Plaza, which they're referring to as "OGP" (Oscar Grant Plaza).
Update 4:05 p.m.: Here's NBC's coverage. Oakland City Administrator Deanna Santana issued a statement: "The city of Oakland will not be bullied by threats of violence or illegal activity. This community has a rich history of community engagement and progressive activism to address the very complex issues that the protesters claim to stand for — poverty, the housing crisis, homelessness, social justice, literacy, education and economic inequality — none of which can be addressed through violence, threats or intimidation."

jtowersSF jordan towers (arrested)

Police Clash With Occupy Oakland on 'Move-In Day,' Tear Gas Deployed: It was "Move-In Day" ... bit.ly/x85Fwd #sf #bayarea

Mass arrests at Occupy Oakland protest

2012-01-29T04:42:00.005-05:00

Mass arrests at Occupy Oakland protest

Updated at 12:35 AM today

City leaders at wits end over Occupy Oakland

by Sergio Quintana

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Tear gas and flash bang grenades marked a day of clashes with police in Oakland Saturday.

It all escalated into a mass arrest at the downtown YMCA. A band of roaming protesters also vandalized city hall and Oakland was prompted to cal for mutual aid from neighboring police departments. Going through the statistics of the day is like going through a laundry list of mayhem. There were hundreds of the arrests. At least three police officers were injured and at least one protester was injured. Several buildings were broken into and vandalized, as well as some vehicles.

Mayor Quan and her leadership staff say they have come to an end of their tolerance in dealing with violent Occupy demonstrations. City hall became one of the targets of demonstrators when a few people managed to force their way in and make a mess of the place. A visibly-flustered Mayor Jean Quan voiced her frustration with this latest demonstration. "Occupy Oakland has got to stop using Oakland as its playground, and people in the community, and people in the Occupy movement have to stop making excuses for his behavior," she said. At the height of protests during the day, demonstrators squared off with police. Some tossed objects at officers and police responded with flash bangs and smoke grenades. The demonstrators would disperse and then regroup. As the day wore on, several conflicts erupted.

Occupy Oakland protestors break into city hall

Saturday, January 28, 2012

raw video: Police use tear gas against Occupy Oakland protesters

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Oakland City Hall was broken into by multiple people Saturday night during Occupy Oakland protests, according to police.

Few details were available, although some reports from the scene indicate some protestors burned a city flag in front of the building. Police have since secured the building.

The city hall incursion followed the detention and possible arrest of more than 100 people today in Occupy Oakland protests.

Oakland warns protesters not to take over building

Saturday, January 28, 2012

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Oakland officials are warning Occupy protesters they won't allow the group to take over a vacant building Saturday.

Members of the group said earlier this week that they planned to move into a vacant building and turn it into a social center and political hub. They also threatened to try to shut down the port, occupy the airport and take over City Hall.
But in a statement Friday, Oakland City Administrator Deanna Santana said the city would not be "bullied by threats of violence or illegal activity."

Occupy Oakland protesters may target Oakland Airport

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Occupy Oakland protesters are threatening the city of Oakland with shutting down the Oakland International Airport, if police stand in the way of their latest planned demonstration.

Occupy leaders returned to Frank Ogawa Plaza Wednesday morning to announce they plan on staging a march this Saturday from City Hall to a vacant building. Their plan is to make the building their new home and establish the same services they had at the encampment they had in front of City Hall.
"We will be taking over a place. We will not be asking for permission, nor will we be renting or paying any money to a bank. We will be taking over an abandoned property," said Leo Ritz-Barr from Occupy Oakland.
The demonstrators also read a letter they sent to Oakland Mayor Juan Quan stating that if they're evicted, they may repeat a shutdown of the port, they could blockade the airport, or once again occupy City Hall.
The mayor has no comment on the protest plan at this time.

CNN - More than 100 Occupy activists arrested in Oakland after clashing with police

2012-01-29T04:25:00.002-05:00

More than 100 Occupy activists arrested in Oakland after clashing with police

By the CNN Wire Staff

updated 11:41 PM EST, Sat January 28, 2012

Smoke rises between Occupy Oakland protesters and police cordoning

off an intersection Saturday.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: More than 100 protesters are arrested after they enter a downtown Oakland YMCA building
NEW: Occupy protesters claim an attempt to enter Oakland City Hall
Police say activists threw bottles, flares and other objects, injuring 3 officers
Police used tear gas and smoke; activists say they also used rubber bullets

(CNN) -- Occupy activists tossed pipes, bottles, burning flares and other objects Saturday at Oakland police, who responded by using tear gas and smoke grenades and arresting more than 100 demonstrators, city and police officials said.
Oakland has been a flash point of the Occupy movement since October when police used tear gas to break up demonstrators who refused to leave downtown. One demonstrator, a Marine veteran of the war in Iraq, suffered a skull fracture after being hit with a police projectile, according to a veteran's group. Police said they acted after the crowd threw paint and other objects at officers.
On Saturday, police made mass arrests following an afternoon clash with protesters near the Kaiser Convention Center and then later outside a downtown YMCA, according to a police statement.
The tension began Saturday around noon when about 250 activists gathered in Frank Ogawa Plaza. They were joined later by another 200 people as they marched around the city.
Police said the protesters "began tearing down perimeter fences around" the Kaiser center around 2:30 p.m., with officers ordering the protesters to leave the area about 20 minutes later.
"The City of Oakland welcomes peaceful forms of assembly and freedom of speech, but acts of violence, property destruction and overnight lodging will not be tolerated," the statement said.
On its Twitter feed, Oakland police wrote that people near the YMCA were being arrested for unlawful assembly. Police claimed, too, that parts of the Oakland Museum and Kaiser Center were "severely impacted," with people cutting and tearing fences.
Occupy protesters also blocked traffic at major intersections and attacked a KTVU television truck, damaging the truck and breaking windows, the station said. No injuries were reported.
By nightfall, Occupy protesters moved toward Oakland City Hall, according to the group's Twitter feed.
"Amazing day. We didnt get in the building, but fought like our future depended on it," the group tweeted.
Posts on Occupy Oakland's Twitter feed claim that police met the protesters "with munitions and violence." One read: "#OccupyOakland being teargassed smoked bombed & shot at w rubber bullets."
Oakland police said they used only smoke and tear gas. They did so after warning activists who had begun "destroying construction equipment and fencing" around the Kaiser center, authorities said. Officers were "pelted" with bottles, metal pipes, rocks and burning flares, according to another police statement released earlier in the day.
While there was no immediate word on injuries to protesters, Oakland police said that three of their officers were hurt in the earlier clash.
After that incident, roughly 500 activists returned to Ogawa Plaza, according to a police statement. Aerial video footage showed them later on the move and a post on Occupy Oakland's Twitter feed indicated they were planning to march to a "second building" -- an apparent reference to the YMCA.
While touting the action as "Move-In Day" on their website, occupyoaklandmoveinday.org, organizers did not state what "large, vacant" building they planned to occupy. They also acknowledged that "like the encampment at Oscar Grant Plaza, the building move-in is not legal."
But the group said the move was necessary, in part because "since November, the city of Oakland and its police force have made it impossible for us to meet, to serve food, and to provide a place for people to stay."
"Occupy Oakland is about people providing for themselves and for others, since it is clear that the system can no longer provide for them," the group said on its website. "It is a place where people who are fed up can come together and develop new forms of struggle."
In a letter to Mayor Jean Quan, the city council and the Oakland police department, protesters threatened several actions if authorities try to "evict us again." They included "blockading the airport indefinitely, occupying City Hall indefinitely, shutting down the Oakland ports" and getting help from the activist hacking group known as Anonymous.
In mid-December, Occupy protesters shut down the Oakland port terminal.
Following October's clashes with protesters, Police Chief Howard Jordan said "all allegations of misconduct and excessive uses of forces are being thoroughly investigated by internal and external investigative sources," according to a letter posted on the department's website.
The website also solicits "input ... about police interactions with protesters during the Occupy Oakland protests." People are asked to contact the independent investigator who is looking into authorities' actions in October and November 2011.

Arrests at Occupy party in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

2012-01-29T04:23:00.000-05:00

Arrests at Occupy party in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Protesters clash with cops in hipster 'hood

By John Doyle / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, January 29, 2012, 1:36 AM

John Doyle/New York Daily News

Police made arrests after busting up a party in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as Occupy Wall Street protesters tried to take over a building at N. Eighth and Driggs Sts. in an event billed as the "Challenge to property relations party" Saturday night.

DOZENS of partying Occupy Wall Street protesters descended on hipster Brooklyn Saturday night, clashing with police, throwing garbage cans and drinking beer out of a vacant luxury building.
The night was billed as a “Challenge to property relations party” in which the group planned to take over a building at the corner of N. Eighth and Driggs Sts. in Williamsburg, according to a flyer.
They hung Christmas lights, spray painted slogans like “F--k the police” and “Life is Protest” on the building walls, but were civilized enough to pack some beer on ice in the empty building at 208 N. Eighth St.
When police were called to bust up the party just before 11 p.m., the group of 30 party-hardy protesters marched down to the corner of N. Sixth and Bedford Sts. — in front of a New York Muffins shop — and began to chant their slogans, block traffic and toss garbage cans in the street.
Several police were injured in the fracas and a handful of protesters were arrested, witnesses and cops said.
John Doyle

NYT - Occupy Protesters and Police Clash in Oakland

2012-01-29T04:10:00.001-05:00

Occupy Protesters and Police Clash in Oakland

Stephen Lam/Reuters

Police officers fired tear gas at hundreds of Occupy protesters in Oakland, Calif.,
who tried to take over a vacant building on Saturday.

By SARAH MASLIN NIR

Published: January 29, 2012

A march to take over a vacant building by members of the Occupy movement in Oakland, Calif., turned into a violent confrontation with the police on Saturday, leaving three officers injured and about 200 people arrested.

Follow @NYTNational for breaking news and headlines.

Twitter List: Reporters and Editors

The clashes began just before 3 p.m. when protesters marched toward the vacant Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, the police said, and began to tear down construction barricades. Officers ordered the crowd to disperse when protesters “began destroying construction equipment and fencing,” the Oakland police said in a press release.

“Officers were pelted with bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices and burning flares, the police said.” Officers responded with smoke, tear gas and beanbag projectiles. Twenty people were arrested.

Most of the arrests occurred in the evening, when large groups of people were corralled in front of the Downtown Oakland Y.M.C.A. on Broadway. At one point, one group of protesters broke into the City Hall building.

On a livestream broadcast on the Web site oakfosho.com, dozens of protesters could be seen sitting cross-legged in darkness on the street in front of the Y.M.C.A. Their hands appeared to be bound behind them, while police officers stood watch. Occasionally the protesters sang or cheered.

The events were part of a demonstration dubbed “Move-in Day,” a plan by protesters to move into the vacant convention center and use it as a commune-like command center, according to the Web site occupyoaklandmoveinday.org.

“We were going to set up a community center,” said Benjamin Phillips, 32, a member of the Occupy Oakland media team. “It would be a place where we could house people, feed people, do all the things that we have been doing.”

In an open letter to Mayor Jean Quan on the Move-in Day site, the group threatened actions like “blockading the airport indefinitely, occupying City Hall indefinitely” and “shutting down the Oakland ports.” Occupy protesters did briefly shut down the city’s busy port in November.

In a statement issued before the march, Ms. Quan said that “the residents of Oakland are wearying of the constant focus and cost to our city.” On Saturday night, she added: “Once again, a violent splinter group of the Occupy Movement is engaging in violent actions against Oakland. The Bay Area Occupy Movement has got to stop using Oakland as their playground.”

In a statement, city officials said the total number of arrests was estimated at 200.

Ms. Quan has spent her first term embattled by the Occupy movement, which installed itself in Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in October. After initially embracing the protest, she ordered the encampment removed from the plaza.

After a series of violent episodes, including a clash in which a Marine veteran of Iraq suffered a fractured skull when struck by a projectile in a confrontation with the police, Ms. Quan relented and permitted the protesters to return to the plaza. But two weeks later, in response to fears of renewed violence, she ordered the plaza cleared again.

Mr. Phillips, who said he is a veteran of the United States Air Force, spoke Saturday night from his home on Grand Avenue where he had stopped to rinse tear-gas residue from his contact lenses. He described the scene in front of the Y.M.C.A. as “terrifying.”

“This is disgusting, because this is not the way that America is supposed to work,” he said. “You’re supposed to be able to have something like freedom to assemble and air your grievances,” he said.

“It’s bizarre,” he said of the police reaction. “It’s not something you expect to see in the United States, and we’ve seen it over and over in Oakland.”

Police, Oakland protesters clash; 200 arrested

2012-01-29T04:07:00.001-05:00

Police, Oakland protesters clash; 200 arrested

Analysis & Opinion

By Laird Harrison and Emmett Berg

OAKLAND | Sun Jan 29, 2012 3:44am EST

(Reuters) - Riot police fought running clashes with anti-Wall street protesters in Oakland on Saturday, firing tear gas and arresting more than 200 people in scuffles that injured three officers and at least one demonstrator.
The confrontations erupted in the mid-afternoon as Occupy activists sought to take over a shuttered convention center, trying to regain momentum in their movement against economic inequality after authorities cleared protest camps across the country late last year.
Hundreds of people filled the downtown Oakland streets well into the evening, turning their anger toward authorities in a city that has seen simmering tensions between police and protesters boil over repeatedly.
"Occupy Oakland has got to stop using Oakland as its playground," Mayor Jean Quan said at a late evening press conference as officers in riot gear were still lined up against demonstrators in parts of downtown.
"Once again, a violent splinter group of the Occupy movement is engaging in violent actions against Oakland," she said.
City officials said three police officers and one protester were injured during repeated altercations throughout downtown. There was no immediate word on their condition. Streaming Internet broadcasts by activists showed several demonstrators being treated by paramedics or loaded into ambulances.
Occupy Oakland organizers had earlier vowed to take over the apparently empty convention center to establish a new headquarters for their movement and draw attention to homelessness in a move seen as a challenge to authorities who have blocked similar efforts before.
Police and protesters first scuffled after activists tried to tear down a chain-link fence surrounding the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center in downtown Oakland.
"The one percent have all these empty buildings, and meanwhile there are all these homeless people," protester Omar Yassin told Reuters at the scene.
Police in riot gear moved in, firing smoke grenades and tear gas to drive the crowd back. A city spokeswoman estimated the number of arrests at more than 200 throughout the day.
"Officers were pelted with bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices and burning flares," the Oakland Police Department said in a statement. "Oakland Police Department deployed smoke and tear gas."
CORRUGATED METAL SHIELDS
Some activists, carrying shields made of plastic garbage cans and corrugated metal, tried to circumvent the police line, and surged toward police on another side of the building as more smoke canisters were fired.
"The City of Oakland welcomes peaceful forms of assembly and freedom of speech, but acts of violence, property destruction and overnight lodging will not be tolerated," police said in a statement.
Hundreds of demonstrators regrouped and marched through downtown Oakland, where they were repeatedly confronted by police in riot gear. Police at several points fired flash-bang grenades into the crowd and swung batons at protesters.
A group of demonstrators ultimately made their way to City Hall, where they brought out a U.S. flag and set it on fire before scattering ahead of advancing officers.
Several hundred people remained in the streets well after dark, facing off against lines of riot police holding batons who demonstrators sometimes taunted as "pigs".
Protesters in Oakland loosely affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York last year have repeatedly clashed with police during a series of marches and demonstrations.
In October, former U.S. Marine Scott Olsen was left in critical condition with a head injury following a confrontation with police on the streets of Oakland in which tear gas was deployed.
Organizers said Olsen was struck in the head by a tear gas canister. Authorities opened an investigation into that incident but have not said how they believe he was hurt.
Elsewhere, the National Park Service said on Friday it would bar Occupy protesters in the nation's capital, one of the few big cities where Occupy encampments survive, from camping in two parks where they have been living since October.
That order, which takes effect on Monday, was seen as a blow to one of the highest-profile chapters of the movement.
(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Mary Slosson; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Canada - Sopa’s Evil Little Brother. Politely.

2012-01-28T16:27:00.000-05:00

Sopa’s Evil Little Brother. Politely.

Posted: January 26, 2012 in Culture, Media, Politics
Tags: Censorship, copyright, Media, Piracy, Revolution, SOPA, Users Rights

I’m a Canadian.
We’re a quiet bunch; prone to enjoying hockey, drinking stronger beer than our friends south of the border, and lovers of fries smothered in cheese curds and gravy.
We also, apparently, have an inferiority complex when it comes to being evil dirt bags, because we’ve decided to pass our very own version of SOPA up here.
Only better*
Meet Bill-C11. Formerly Bill C-32. (I think they thought if they made the number lower people would care less about it?)
Or as we call it up here; Her Royal Majesty V, Zzzzzzz
We like our politics dry up here.
But, as innocuous as it sounds, C-11 does a whole lot that SOPA did with a few extra twists you might not find in the Wikipedia write-up.
Like your PVR? You can’t keep it under C-11.
Like ripping CDs to your iPod? Say bye-bye.
Hey, do you want to be able to unlock your $500 smartphone and take it to a provider less dedicated to violating your wallet? That won’t be allowed either.
Did you get accused of internet piracy but no evidence has been presented and a trial date hasn’t even been set? Under C-11 your ISP will now be forced to terminate your internet access.
And people say that governments can’t be bought.
We’re not going to get Google or Wikipedia to go dark up here. We don’t have as robust a tech industry to act as a public counterbalance to entertainment industry interests. We have a Prime Minister (that’s French for Dear Leader under the current regime) who doesn’t give a suckling goat what the people think about his policies.
But we do have a lot more recourse in our political system to make politicians pay than our Yankee brethren do. (Yes I know I just insulted everyone south of the Mason Dixon line. I’m sorry. You trying caring about foreign geographical terminology when every person you’ve ever met from a particular country still thinks it’s the height of hilarity to ask if you live in an igloo.) We have things like votes of no confidence that can really bugger up a sitting House member’s day.
So, if you’re Canadian, or you’re friends with a Canadian, or you just really like bacon, click the link at the bottom of this article and share it with as many people as you can.
We can’t afford to lose on this one, Canada.
Besides…

Winners Go Home And Fuck The Prom Queen
-Sean Connery

And he would know.
*And by better, I mean shockingly, horrifyingly worse.
http://www.ccer.ca/canadian-copyright-reform/canadian-copyright-reform-back-with-vengeance/
There are only 14 days left people. Get active.
Updated 10:10 PM Mountain Time
For those who are complaining that C-11 as written isn’t SOPA-like enough to warrant this comparison, please read http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6257/125/ before commenting. Things have changed drastically with respect to this bill in the last week; the really ugly stuff (which has been publicly discussed by members of the C-11 committee.) is in the unpublished modifications in the wake of SOPA’s defeat stateside.
More here, here and here.

Comments

Angela says:
January 28, 2012 at 2:07 pm
As an American (yes, yes, boo hiss), I commend you on your early action and keeping people informed. I have many Canadian friends and support your desire to keep these shitty bills from passing.
As a Texan, I find your igloo statement hilarious as I have never even seen a ranch and I don’t own a horse. Stereotypes are fun, eh?
Reply
Dumb says:
January 28, 2012 at 1:57 pm
“Like your PVR? You can’t keep it under C-11.”
Yes, so, Shaw, Rogers, Telus, Bell, and Cocego to name a few would love to see their business crippled. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Reply
- The Walrus says:
  January 28, 2012 at 2:10 pm
  Under C-11 content creators (networks)) would be able to demand that their content be digitally locked and not PVR-able. You’d get to keep your machine but it would become more and more useless.
  Reply
zeb dalgalaxy says:
January 28, 2012 at 1:50 pm
why are you writing this as if you’re talking to an american? …”We’re not going to get Google or Wikipedia to go dark up here.” and why use so many stupid stereotypes? (also as if youre talking to an american)
Reply
- The Walrus says:
  January 28, 2012 at 2:07 pm
  Because most of my regular readers (meager an audience as that might be) are American
  Reply
yep says:
January 28, 2012 at 1:12 pm
Unless an officer come to my house with a loaded gun i’m going to do whatever the fuck i want on the internet. EAT SHIT STEVE!
Reply
Greg says:
January 28, 2012 at 1:03 pm
There’s a Facebook campaign against this proposed law:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Bill-C-11-Fight-Harpers-proposed-Copyright-Act-Defend-Your-Data/238789716190627
Reply
Timothy Kelley says:
January 28, 2012 at 12:41 pm
For anyone reading this that keeps saying who cares and wonders why people are getting so up in arms over this go the this link read it come back and then make an intelligent comment about what you wrote. If you still believe after reading it that there is nothing to worry about tell us why you think so defend your point of view otherwise you just look like a complete douche.
Just to let you know the link below is the actual bill on the Parliament of Canada website detailing the entire bill.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=5144516
Reply
Angie says:
January 28, 2012 at 12:32 pm
Where is this petition? While I think that you did a fine job writing a decent commentary, I have to apologise for all the assholes that dont have something better to do than deter attention from the most important facts here: our government is trying to find more and more ways to infringe on our human rights and find more ways to control where our money goes. Its amazing that they think people will not be spending the next few weeks pirating everything they can in preparation for the passing of the bill…
But I digress, where we can go to sign the petition should be mentioned or highlighted somewhere… Please?
Reply
- The Walrus says:
  January 28, 2012 at 12:34 pm
  Hi Angie, the link to the page hosting the petition is near the bottom of the article, just before the update.
  Reply
- Anonymous says:
  January 28, 2012 at 12:57 pm
  and that’s why the government is considering passing bills such as these
  Reply
Jenner says:
January 28, 2012 at 12:20 pm
What does apposing C-11 matter if Canada has already signed ACTA? We are already screwed…
Reply
- Jenner says:
  January 28, 2012 at 12:41 pm
  Find out what ACTA is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ0a37IAW6M&feature=share
  Reply
REG" the choosen one" says:
January 28, 2012 at 12:12 pm
its all for nothing anyways,the solar storm in dec 2012 is gonna wipe out all electronic gadgets and then we as people can get back to reality
Reply
- Anonymous says:
  January 28, 2012 at 12:43 pm
  hahahahahaaha yeah right.
  Reply
Thomas says:
January 28, 2012 at 11:50 am
Who fucking cares. Worry about something that matters….
Reply
Cunt says:
January 28, 2012 at 11:49 am
Can’t do anything about it so shut the fuck up and eat you cereal
Reply
Anonymous says:
January 28, 2012 at 11:48 am
Who the fuck cares
Reply
Anonymous says:
January 28, 2012 at 11:35 am
i like bacon.
Reply
- Anonymous says:
  January 28, 2012 at 1:24 pm
  You are enormously cool
  Reply
Katie says:
January 28, 2012 at 11:16 am
If you look up Bill C – 11 on the government of Canada website, it’s a bill to prevent the spread of human pathogens. Nothing to do with the internet?
Reply
- The Walrus says:
  January 28, 2012 at 11:28 am
  Bill names get shifted around. This iteration of C-11 used to be C-32, for example.
  Reply
Melissa Plante says:
January 28, 2012 at 10:53 am
Sharing
Reply
barb.raw says:
January 28, 2012 at 10:46 am
Thank you for posting and writing this – regardless of the shitty comments posted above, we’re reading and the point you make is excellent. I wish trolls would hold our print media and government so accountable Keep writing!
Reply
top 100 | Lesvosnews.net says:
January 28, 2012 at 9:23 am
[...] Dear They [...]
Reply
Michael Faubert says:
January 28, 2012 at 9:08 am
Yowzers, and i thought this was just an American problem.
Reply
Daniel Snyder says:
January 28, 2012 at 8:44 am
Strange comment threads here. While I oppose the bill, I don’t agree with your stance on Harper. In any case your ‘creative writing’ is a bit uninspired.
Reply
Saint Anger says:
January 28, 2012 at 6:58 am
They can kiss my ass. The thing about ripping cds to mp3 player…i would love to see them try and stop that. I already added this shit up…going with the $150.000 fine for each copyright on my computer i would owe them over $4.5 BILLION. I cant even afford a fucking coffee right now (FUCKING THANKS TO THE GOVERNMENT – “EI”) So please, waste your time and money trying to get that $4.5 billion from me!
Reply
Mark says:
January 28, 2012 at 5:54 am
Less trying to come off as a witty writer and more to the point please.
(Because most people care less about you or your writing and more about what the hell is going on with Bill C11.)
Bonus: If you’re going to upload a couple of documents of your “creative writing” (quotations in this case can be interpreted however you’d like them to be), you might actually get people interested in it if you publish it on a nicer looking/less-generic website. But probably not
Reply
- Susie says:
  January 28, 2012 at 7:39 am
  Less trying to be a bitch and a little more clicking and sharing, please.
  Reply
Sean O'flynn-magee says:
January 28, 2012 at 3:34 am
Constant Vigilance!
Reply
OUT OF THE COLD | iNTUiT says:
January 27, 2012 at 10:12 pm
[...] This article is in reference to the post made here [...]
Reply
Anonymous says:
January 27, 2012 at 10:10 pm
PISS CUNT FUCK
Reply
- The Walrus says:
  January 27, 2012 at 10:15 pm
  That is…succinct
  Reply
Donny says:
January 27, 2012 at 9:43 pm
C-11 is nothing like SOPA. If you’re going to write on a subject, you should really be at least somewhat knowledgable on that subject and it’s quite clear that you aren’t.
Reply
- The Walrus says:
  January 27, 2012 at 10:07 pm
  Donny, the more severe limitations are all ones that have been proposed in the past week. See:
  http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6257/125/
  Specifically:
  “For example, the industry wants language to similar to that found in SOPA on blocking access to websites, demanding new provisions that would “permit a court to make an order blocking a pirate site such as The Pirate Bay to protect the Canadian marketplace from foreign pirate sites.” Section 102 of SOPA also envisioned blocking of websites:
  A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address. Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order.
  The music industry also wants Internet providers to be required to adopt a termination policy for subscribers that are alleged to be repeat infringers. According to the industry document:
  To incent service providers to cooperate in stemming piracy by requiring them to adopt and reasonably implement a policy to prevent the use of their services by repeat infringers and by conditioning the availability of service provider exceptions on this being done.”
  Things change sir, and before impugning someone’s knowledge on a subject, you might want to try doing a bit of research first.
  Reply
  - Mark says:
    January 28, 2012 at 5:59 am
    And in the future you might want to save embarassing yourself by leaving holes of important information in your post that will be called out by readers who don’t even need to have knowledge of the subject to spot shitty writing. Unless you intended this to be a joy blog for yourself, in which case please disregard my comment as it was aimed for those who actually come to the internet to get informed.
    Reply
  - Donny says:
    January 28, 2012 at 8:23 am
    “Groups are pushing for” is not the same as “about to pass”. The bill hasn’t even finished second reading yet.
    Groups push for all kinds of things, this is not the same as them actually being included in the bill and it’s definitely not the same as them being about to pass.
    Leave the writing to Michael Geist, he understands how our political system works and you clearly don’t.
    Reply
    - Anonymous says:
      January 28, 2012 at 11:31 am
      The point of the matter is, is that if they’re pushing for it, they WANT it to pass. Jumping on the “Oh no you don’t bill C-11″ band wagon now insures that it won’t get close to passing in any right. Less complaining, more action.
      Reply
Anonymous says:
January 27, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Did you read the bill? It specifically allows reproduction for private purposes, with very loose limitations. It specifically allows backup copies to be kept as long as the media was obtained legally and the copy is not given away, with very loose limitations.
eg. You may rip a CD you buy and put it on your iPod, put it on another CD, copy it to a hard drive, etc., as long as you do not sell it or give a copy away.
eg. You may record a performance (TV Show, Movie, etc.) in any way you please, as long as you receive the show legally. You may even keep the recording as long a time as is “convenient” to watch it at another time.
This bill is only for preventing serious copyright infringement and it should absolutely pass.
Reply
- Mike says:
  January 27, 2012 at 8:17 pm
  @Anonymous, did *you* read the bill? It *denies* you all of those rights in cases where the content provider has implemented a “digital lock.” Which, with digitally-distributed content, is pretty much all cases.
  Reply
- Anonymous says:
  January 27, 2012 at 8:51 pm
  Damn right!
  Reply
- Anonymous says:
  January 28, 2012 at 12:34 am
  What are you, an idiot?
  Reply
Mike says:
January 27, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Sorry, but you’re wrong – Bill C-11 is nothing like SOPA. Rather, it is pretty much a replica of the DMCA, which is the *other* evil U.S. copyright law that they’ve already had for several years. Here in Canada we not only do everything politely, we do it exactly the same as the U.S., just a few years behind.
Reply
- The Walrus says:
  January 27, 2012 at 10:08 pm
  Mike and Anonymous, see above reply to Donny re http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6257/125/
  Things have changed drastically in last week with C-11 and it’s the unpublished changes that cause the most concern.
  Reply
  - Mike says:
    January 27, 2012 at 10:19 pm
    Well… shit. Thank-you for pointing this out, Walrus!
    Reply
    - The Walrus says:
      January 27, 2012 at 10:21 pm
      That sir, is how I roll. Never write something that can’t be backed up…that way you don’t wind up fellating bad guys in the slammer.
      Reply
      - Mark says:
        January 28, 2012 at 6:04 am
        I’m pretty sure the bad taste of this website can’t be backed up, lol. That’s how I roll, sir!
        Reply
        
        The Walrus says:
        January 28, 2012 at 10:11 am
        Like a troll? Exactly which part of C-11 do you like? Look, this is a 400 word, written at midnight, vent about an issue that concerns me. It’s not in any sense authoritative and was written as reaction to a string of much more authoritative articles sharing the same conclusion. What it has done is get a few thousand extra people to sign a petition to stop a bill that (unless you have a differing opinion) absolutely should not be passed.
        Are you really so impotent and attention starved that you feel the need to flail around wildly at anyone who has an opinion?
        Gotta love the internet.
        Reply
        
        VicountBastion says:
        January 28, 2012 at 11:21 am
        They sound less like trolls and more like plants for Harper trying to do damage control. “My personal rights might be at risk, so I am going to complain about creative writing and attack the author with petty ad hominem that distracts from the issue!” Eh-huh. Occam’s Razor says “PLANT”.
Leanne Moffat says:
January 27, 2012 at 6:59 pm
Reblogged this on One Odd Duck and commented:
Please read.
Reply
tashtoo says:
January 27, 2012 at 6:23 pm
Reblogged this on thebleedingpen and commented:
Read this…share this….stop this… Calling upon the New World Creative
Reply
- The Walrus says:
  January 27, 2012 at 10:08 pm
  Thanks for the share!
  Reply
tashtoo says:
January 27, 2012 at 6:21 pm
I don’t care who you insulted Fellow citizen under Emperor Harper…we need to shout this loud!
Reply
Anonymous says:
January 27, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Actually you insulted everyone south of the 49th parallel… the Mason/Dixon line separates the southern states form teh northern states…. just saying
Reply
- Anonymous says:
  January 27, 2012 at 4:50 pm
  Southerners aren’t properly called Yankees, so he used the right line.
  Reply
  - The Walrus says:
    January 27, 2012 at 10:09 pm
    So….I was close-ish?
    Reply
    - Rhonda Hansen says:
      January 28, 2012 at 3:57 am
      as a southerner from FL, you were spot on, lol, sharing
      Reply

'Inexcusable' language on immigration alienating Latino voters, Republicans told

2012-01-28T15:19:00.000-05:00

'Inexcusable' language on immigration alienating Latino voters, Republicans told

Florida senator Marco Rubio and former governor Jeb Bush warn party's frontrunners not to use 'harsh and intolerable' language

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 28 January 2012 07.24 EST
Article history

The Republican former governor Jeb Bush said: 'Hispanic people hear these debates and I think you turn them off.' Photograph: Wilfredo Lee/AP

Senior Republicans including the brother of the former president George Bush have warned the party to avoid using "harsh, intolerable and inexcusable" language about illegal immigration or risk alienating Latino voters.
The Florida senator, Marco Rubio, and the state's former governor Jeb Bush made their appeal before Tuesday's primary, being contested by Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.
The Republican frontrunners clashed over illegal immigration in a debate earlier this week. The issue is emotive in Florida, which has the third largest Latino population in America.
Latinos make up 13% of Florida's 11.2 million registered voters, according to data from the Florida Division of Elections, compiled by the Pew Hispanic Center.
"We must admit there are those among us that have used rhetoric that is harsh and intolerable and inexcusable," Rubio said in a speech at the Hispanic Leadership Network in Miami on Friday.
"And we must admit, myself included, that sometimes we've been too slow to condemn that language for what it is."
Both Gingrich and Romney have courted the Latino community in Florida and aired commercials in Spanish, but many Floridian voters are upset by hardline measures proposed by Republicans to curb immigration in other states such as Arizona and Texas.
The US is home to an estimated 14 million illegal immigrants, but many US citizens have been "illegal" at some point in their lives.
Some Republican leaders have introduced legislation to prevent the provision of services to illegal immigrants, the majority of whom are Hispanic.
Bush also urged Republicans to temper their comments. "Hispanic people hear these debates and I think you turn them off. It's not a good thing," he said.
Romney and Gingrich exchanged remarks about illegal immigration during their televised debate in Jacksonville on Thursday. The exchanges centred on an ad Gingrich put out which described Romney as "anti-immigrant".
Gingrich withdrew the ad on Wednesday after leading Latino Republican politicians described it as offensive, but stood by it in the debate.
Romney called on Gingrich to apologise, describing the ad as "inexcusable and inflammatory and inappropriate" – unusual language for the normally buttoned-up candidate. He said it was "simply the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has characterised American politics for too long".
Gingrich, who has proposed a humane approach to illegal immigrants, stood his ground, insisting Romney was the most anti-immigrant of the four candidates fighting for the Republican nomination.
Nearly one-third of eligible Hispanic voters in Florida are of Cuban descent, while 28% are of Puerto Rican origin. Mexican Americans, who account for nearly 60% of Hispanic eligible voters nationwide, represent 9% of Florida voters.
In 2008, Barack Obama won more than half of Florida's Hispanic vote, although polls suggest Hispanic voters have become disillusioned with the president.

Twitter's new censorship plan rouses global furor

2012-01-28T14:09:00.000-05:00

Jan 27, 11:58 PM EST

Twitter's new censorship plan rouses global furor

By DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer

AP Photo

Technology Video

AP AUDIO

Twitter users around the world are concerned about new Twitter technology. AP correspondent Sandy Kozel reports.

AP AUDIO

Social media commentator Jeff Jarvis says Twitter's announcement that it's refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis has set it on a slippery slope of censorship.

AP AUDIO

Blogger Mike Butcher says he expects a huge user backlash against the latest move by Twitter, which could allow governments to censor messages.

AP AUDIO

Twitter user and student Mohamed Gomma says he's afraid the new Twitter technology is weakening the company's commitment to free speech.

Buy AP Photo Reprints

NEW YORK (AP) -- Twitter, a tool of choice for dissidents and activists around the world, found itself the target of global outrage Friday after unveiling plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.

It was a stunning role reversal for a youthful company that prides itself in promoting unfettered expression, 140 characters at a time. Twitter insisted its commitment to free speech remains firm, and sought to explain the nuances of its policy, while critics - in a barrage of tweets - proposed a Twitter boycott and demanded that the censorship initiative be scrapped.

"This is very bad news," tweeted Egyptian activist Mahmoud Salem, who operates under the name Sandmonkey. Later, he wrote, "Is it safe to say that (hash)Twitter is selling us out?"

In China, where activists have embraced Twitter even though it's blocked inside the country, artist and activist Ai Weiwei tweeted in response to the news: "If Twitter censors, I'll stop tweeting."

One often-relayed tweet bore the headline of a Forbes magazine technology blog item: "Twitter Commits Social Suicide"

San Francisco-based Twitter, founded in 2006, depicted the new system as a step forward. Previously, when Twitter erased a tweet, it vanished throughout the world. Under the new policy, a tweet breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter said it will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed and will post the removal requests it receives from governments, companies and individuals at the website chillingeffects.org.

The critics are jumping to the wrong conclusions, said Alexander Macgilliviray, Twitter's general counsel.

"This is a good thing for freedom of expression, transparency and accountability," he said. "This launch is about us keeping content up whenever we can and to be extremely transparent with the world when we don't. I would hope people realize our philosophy hasn't changed."

Some defenders of Internet free expression came to Twitter's defense.

"Twitter is being pilloried for being honest about something that all Internet platforms have to wrestle with," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "As long as this censorship happens in a secret way, we're all losers."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland credited Twitter with being upfront about the potential for censorship and said some other companies are not as forthright.

As for whether the new policy would be harmful, Nuland said that wouldn't be known until after it's implemented.

Reporters Without Borders, which advocates globally for press freedom, sent a letter to Twitter's executive chairman, Jack Dorsey, urging that the censorship policy be ditched immediately.

"By finally choosing to align itself with the censors, Twitter is depriving cyberdissidents in repressive countries of a crucial tool for information and organization," the letter said. "Twitter's position that freedom of expression is interpreted differently from country to country is unacceptable."

Reporters Without Borders noted that Twitter was earning praise from free-speech advocates a year ago for enabling Egyptian dissidents to continue tweeting after the Internet was disconnected.

"We are very disappointed by this U-turn now," it said.

Twitter said it has no plans to remove tweets unless it receives a request from government officials, companies or another outside party that believes the message is illegal. No message will be removed until an internal review determines there is a legal problem, according to Macgilliviray.

"It's a thing of last resort," he said. "The first thing we do is we try to make sure content doesn't get withheld anywhere. But if we feel like we have to withhold it, then we are transparent and we will withhold it narrowly."

Macgilliviray said the new policy has nothing to do with a recent $300 million investment by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Mac or any other financial contribution.

In its brief existence, Twitter has established itself as one of the world's most powerful megaphones. Streams of tweets have played pivotal roles in political protests throughout the world, including the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States and the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and Syria.

Indeed, many of the tweets calling for a boycott of Twitter on Saturday - using the hashtag (hash)TwitterBlackout - came from the Middle East.

"This decision is really worrying," said Larbi Hilali, a pro-democracy blogger and tweeter from Morocco. "If it is applied, there will be a Twitter for democratic countries and a Twitter for the others."

In Cuba, opposition blogger Yoani Sanchez said she would protest Saturday with a one-day personal boycott of Twitter.

"Twitter will remove messages at the request of governments," she tweeted. "It is we citizens who will end up losing with these new rules ... ."

In the wake of the announcement, cyberspace was abuzz with suggestions for how any future country-specific censorship could be circumvented. Some Twitter users said this could be done by employing tips from Twitter's own help center to alter one's "Country" setting. Other Twitter users were skeptical that this would work.

While Twitter has embraced its role as a catalyst for free speech, it also wants to expand its audience from about 100 million active users now to more than 1 billion. Doing so may require it to engage with more governments and possibly to face more pressure to censor tweets; if it defies a law in a country where it has employees, those people could be arrested.

Theoretically, such arrests could occur even in democracies - for example, if a tweet violated Britain's strict libel laws or the prohibitions in France and Germany against certain pro-Nazi expressions.

"It's a tough problem that a company faces once they branch out beyond one set of offices in California into that big bad world out there," said Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices Online, an international network of bloggers and citizen journalists. "We'll have to see how it plays out - how it is and isn't used."

MacKinnon said some other major social networks already employ geo-filtering along the lines of Twitter's new policy - blocking content in a specific jurisdiction for legal reasons while making it available elsewhere.

Many of the critics assailing the new policy suggested that it was devised as part of a long-term plan for Twitter to enter China, where its service is currently blocked.

China's Communist Party remains highly sensitive to any organized challenge to its rule and responded sharply to the Arab Spring, cracking down last year after calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" in China. Many Chinese nonetheless find ways around the so-called Great Firewall that has blocked social networking sites such as Facebook.

Google for several years agreed to censor its search results in China to gain better access to the country's vast population, but stopped that practice two years after engaging in a high-profile showdown with Chain's government. Google now routes its Chinese search results through Hong Kong, where the censorship rules are less restrictive.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt declined to comment on Twitter's action and instead limited his comments to his own company.

"I can assure you we will apply our universally tough principles against censorship on all Google products," he told reporters in Davos, Switzerland.

Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, said it was a matter of trying to adhere to different local laws.

"I think what they (Twitter officials) are wrestling with is what all of us wrestle with - and everyone wants to focus on China, but it is actually a global issue - which is laws in these different countries vary," Drummond said.

"Americans tend to think copyright is a real bad problem, so we have to regulate that on the Internet. In France and Germany, they care about Nazis' issues and so forth," he added. "In China, there are other issues that we call censorship. And so how you respect all the laws or follow all the laws to the extent you think they should be followed while still allowing people to get the content elsewhere?"

Craig Newman, a New York lawyer and former journalist who has advised Internet companies on censorship issues, said Twitter's new policy and the subsequent backlash are both understandable, given the difficult ethical issues at stake.

On one hand, he said, Twitter could put its employees in peril if it was deemed to be breaking local laws.

"On the other hand, Twitter has become this huge social force and people view it as some sort of digital town square, where people can say whatever they want," he said. "Twitter could have taken a stand and refused to enter any countries with the most restrictive laws against free speech."

---

Associated Press writers Paul Schemm in Rabat, Morocco; Michael Liedtke in San Francisco; Peter Orsi in Havana, Cuba; Cara Anna in New York and Ben Hubbard in Cairo contributed to this report.

How Fox News Is Destroying the Republican Party

2012-01-28T14:01:00.001-05:00

Roger Ailes, Fox News CEO. (photo: MediaBistro)

How Fox News Is Destroying the Republican Party

By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters

27 January 12

annabe kingmaker Roger Ailes is facing an open revolt.

More and more despondent conservatives are expressing alarm over the unfolding Republican primary season and what they see as the party's dwindling chances of defeating President Obama in November. Spooked at the general elections prospects facing frontrunners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich (especially Gingrich), members of the so-called Republican Establishment seem to want to reboot the election season and try their nominating luck again.

Sorry, it's too late.

If the current state of concern transforms into a larger, enveloping blame game, Fox News chairman Ailes ought be a looming target. True, conservatives in recent years have shown virtually no interest in critiquing, let alone trying to rein in, Ailes' empire. Still, it's becoming increasingly clear that Fox's programming and the radical, fear-based agenda it's setting for Republicans is now doing lasting damage to the Grand Old Party.

That's because Fox News isn't simply offering a rightward take on the day's events, or innocently providing Republican-friendly commentary, of course. It's leading an exhausting, day-in, day-out attack campaign against Obama, Democrats and all their liberal allies. (Real or imagined.) Its relentless, paranoid crusade falls well outside the mainstream of American politics, which is why the Republican primary season, so proudly sponsored by Fox News, is shaping up to be such an embarrassment.

Make no mistake, kingmaker Ailes has made sure his channel's profoundly un-serious stamp permeates this year's GOP contest. For more and more spooked Republicans though, it's a stamp of failure and looming defeat.

For Ailes and company, that slash-and-burn formula works wonders in terms of super-serving its hardcore, hard-right audience of three million viewers. But in terms of supporting a serious, national campaign and a serious, national conversation? It's not working. At all.

As Fox News has moved in and essentially replaced the RNC as the driving electoral force in Republican politics today, and with Ailes ensconced in his kingmaker role, candidates have had to bow down to Fox in search of votes and the channel's coveted free airtime. That means campaigns have been forced to become part of the channel's culture of personal destruction, as well as its signature self-pity.

The truth is, the Republican Establishment all but ceded control of the party, or at least the public face of the party, to Fox News (and Rush Limbaugh) in January, 2009. Party leaders, demoralized by John McCain's electoral landslide defeat, faded into the background and obediently followed Fox News' often-hysterical lead as Rupert Murdoch's cable channel unveiled an unprecedented effort to demonize and delegitimize the newly elected president. (In the Fox-led world, it's conventional wisdom that Obama's a foreign, race-baiting Marxist who undermines Israel and is determined to destroy the American way of life.)

With Fox News at the irresponsible helm, the conservative movement in America, including the emerging Tea Party, became first and foremost a media movement, and one that gleefully cut ties with common sense and decency. (See: Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh.)

As blogger Andrew Sullivan noted this week:

The Republican Establishment is Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, Karl Rove, and their mainfold products, from Hannity to Levin. They rule on the talk radio airwaves and on the GOP's own "news" channel, Fox.

With media outlets setting the conservative agenda, as well as raising campaign funds and boosting GOP candidates, it was Fox News that quickly transformed itself into the Opposition Party. It was Roger Ailes who, officially or unofficially, began to wear two hats: Program Director at Fox News, Chairman of the RNC.

In terms of whipping up bouts of anti-Obama hysteria, the crass Fox approach enjoyed some short-term success. However, that same media movement is now three long and rhetorically repetitive years into its Obama crusade and trying to nominate a presidential candidate via an extended national campaign. According to more and more worried conservatives, the results on display are disastrous.

Of course, conservatives should have thought that through before handing over the reigns to Ailes and his misinformation minions. Indeed, none of this is unexpected. It's all entirely predictable. It's what happens when a mainstream political movement embraces a radical media strategy like the one being promoted by Fox News; the movement marches itself off a cliff.

Conservative leaders themselves have freely adopted Fox News' profoundly un-unprofessional rhetoric about Obama, claiming just this week he's "pro-poverty" and his politics are "almost un-American." That's the Fox-ification of the GOP.

As Andrew Sullivan noted this week, the current GOP "purges dissidents, it vaunts total loyalty, it polices discourse for any deviation." That sounds a lot like Fox News.

Two years ago, despondent conservative and former Bush speechwriter David Frum, noting the sweeping power that Ailes was accumulating, observed that, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox."

As the Republican primary unfolds, I wonder if more and more poll-weary conservatives would like to fire their new boss.
*******************************************************************************
# PGreen 2012-01-27 16:47

The lesson to the economic elite is, "be careful what you wish for." A good part of the Republican establishment-- which is structured to support the interests of the 1%-- is terrified of a Newt victory-- or a Ron Paul victory, for that matter, though for very different reasons. GIngrich would reintroduce the disastrous financial management of the W years, only worse. If the public refuses to rescue Wall Street from the inevitable calamity that would result from Bush/Gingrich policies, the system will virtually collapse. Paul would end almost all government social programs (which the 1% favor) but, he would also eliminate corporate welfare-- a prospect that scares them no end. (The huge extent to which government props up business is a carefully avoided subject by the establishment, corporate media.)
In advocating an increasingly extreme conservative agenda, and "managing" the facts to fit it, the RNC has lost control of the party to its fringe elements (FOX lovers)-- those who actually believe the garbage they have been spewing for so long. Until they retool they may well find themselves out of the spotlight for awhile-- and trying to manage an increasingly extreme right-wing base. FOX may not be compliant.
Of course the 1% have the Democrats to fall back on. Obama may not be ideal for them, but they won't complain too much given his track record.

+4 # Andrew Hansen 2012-01-28 06:30

Good observation. A different aspect is the conundrum of conservative thinking.

If the aim of the conservative political end is to look-out for one's self, eventually even friends become competitors. In difficult economic environments, especially manufactured ones, it is only a very small step from competitor to enemy. FOX is masterful, maybe their only real strength, at casting those roles.

+11 # kbarrand 2012-01-27 21:35

Fox "News" is the modern day equivalent of TASS. For those too young to remember, TASS was the propaganda "news" outlet for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It had about as much credibility as Baghdad Bob, but of course the people in the Soviet Union didn't know that. In the same way, Fox "News" watchers are blithely unaware that they are being lied to incessantly. Ignorance may be bliss, but it's still ignorance.

+1 # Cambridgemac 2012-01-28 08:54

Well, by the 1970's Soviet citizens had figured out TASS and it had no credibility. Indeed, people came to believe that whatever TASS said, the opposite must be true. It took 50 years to get there.... 2 or 3 generations... We're still in the first generation of Fox viewers...

+6 # grouchy 2012-01-27 21:39

And ain't it all so much fun to witness!

+1 # bluepilgrim 2012-01-27 21:41

Obama has been the designated quisling of the oigarchy all along. The purpose of Fox is two-fold: one is cast the Republicans into such extreme postions that they won't be elected (and, of course, there is always the rigged machines and other dirty tricks to ensure that), the other is to push the nation, and the Democrats even further to the right. The wealthy oligarchy did not get where they are by leaving such things to chance.

+1 # Cambridgemac 2012-01-28 08:56

As near as I can tell, there is NO issue on which Obama is to the left of Richard Nixon. Health insurance was not an issue under Nixon, but this is the kind of plan he would have devised.

And don't forget, he proposed a negative income tax to provide ongoing support to low income folks. That would be called "socialism" today.
this....

+3 # Buddha 2012-01-27 21:44

Sure, FAUXNews is terrible, but it isn't really anything other than a reflection of the GOP itself. There is no room in their party for a moderate, and they embrace the worst aspects of our society...greed, racism, lack of empathy for those less fortunate, religious fanaticism, opposition to science, etc. And because of this extremism, their top candidates are completely "wrong" for the mood and situation today for most Americans. Romney is the archetypal Gordon Gekko vulture capitalist...and while vultures may have a role in an ecology and an economy, nobody wants one as President, do they? Add to this his tone-deafness ("Corporations are people", and "I like to fire people") that just plays into Obama's hand. And Newt is such the epitome of corrupt politician-cum-lobbyist that he was the only Speaker of the House to be censured. The weak field is Obama's saving grace, because he certainly hasn't been the transformative President that we hoped he would be, so he hasn't energized those of us on the Left...but the GOP candidates are so off their rocker that Obama looks spectacular in comparison.

+2 # Regina 2012-01-27 22:14

So the Republican intrinsic insanity is now obvious. Great! Maybe sanity will sneak back into our lives when they finally drive themselves into the oblivion their frenzies are headed for.

+5 # Dave45 2012-01-27 22:46

Actually, one could be forgiven for wondering why the GOP is so upset by the current state of affairs in the US. The condition of the country now is exactly what Republicans have been working for for 30 years. Their objectives were to dismantle as many social programs as possible, to redistribute income upwards, to remove as many regulations on corporate business as possible, and to build up the most effective killing machine in the world. This is what Gingrich and his "contract" minions wanted, and this is what they have accomplished. (Thanks, Democrats, for 30 years of wimpish resistance.) No doubt, the Republican elites thought that as the lower classes got poorer, the elites would feel richer. Unfortunately, not even capitalism benefits from inegalitarianis m. The more equal the economy's participants, the better is life for all concerned ("When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn.")

+1 # Cambridgemac 2012-01-28 09:03

This is a very interesting observation. My first reaction: the non-one-percent that vote Republican are wondering why they aren't rich.
The Republicans have argued for 30 years that the only thing holding back the magical Market is
1. Your tax dollars are going to Negroes. (Formerly, "nigras.") Cut social programs. DONE.
2. Your not making more money because wages are too high in the United States. Let corporations cut wages and become competitive. DONE.

The mendacity and racism of the first argument need no further discussion.

The inherent contradiction of the second argument however, is Orwellian: "You're poor because the wages of working people are too high."
But people fall for it - larded with nonsensical rhetoric about Hayek, and freedum, and markets, and competition, and, recently Galt.

Personally, I've concluded that Americans like being lied to. Like Party members in 1984, they want to think that everyone else is being lied to more, and that they're on the inside. I think Guy Debord got at this.

+2 # upthecrik 2012-01-27 23:06

Who gets their news from the television today? I'll tell you who. Baby-boomers. This country's steady shift to the right as the boomers have aged and become more isolated is grinding to a halt. If the left shows up at the polls, we'll trounce them every time. What we are witnessing are the death throes of a dying generation. Unfortunately, it's going to get uglier before it gets prettier. But the movement is afoot. The U.S. is beginning to do what any smart driver does....look left first.
Buh-bye GOP. Can't say I'll miss ya.

0 # jbrady@postregister.com 2012-01-28 00:01

I've seen few of the 19 Republican debates but found the candidates scarily animated Thursday night. Romney might actually have profited from this endless travail and will be a better candidate for it, baring the gratuity of a Gingrich victory Tuesday. Romney actually owned some of his accomplishments in Massachusetts. Is it too late for him to shape up for the general? Pair him with Rubio, who today branded the extreme as intolerable. There could easily go the state which made Bush president. Who among us is confident of an Obama victory in Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, New Mexico or Nevada? Independent voters are only one-third in Obama's corner and are entirely capable of ignoring what the rest of us may wish was a disasterous Republican primary season. An energized Romney will be a more formedable candidate than McCain.
I was nervous all through September in 2008 and can't imagine this year will be anything less than a nail bitter.

+1 # Patch 2012-01-28 02:51

I want to tell Eric Boehlert to be quiet. Shhhh, don't give Fox or the RNC even a hint of what is happening so they have an opportunity to change what they are doing. Just stand back and (gleefully) watch them self destruct.

+1 # 666 2012-01-28 04:36

1) maybe fox WANTS obama re-elected: Fox built power as THE anti-clinton channel & war-cheerleader channel. it's more profitable with a scapegoat (obama). fox ratings may fall if bachmann/santorum get elected. need a nutball-fix? watch the white house not fox. If obama's re-elected roger "josef goebbels" ailes gets a freehand, & obama will play right into it despite his pseudo-populist re-election rhetoric. If obama wins, it may trigger a GOP "night of the long knives" in which less-radical (more rational) elements are finally purged. As prescient as the rational dirty-tricks wing of the GOP is, they must know it's coming.

2) the GOP primary circus is an obvious scam. how can anyone take it seriously? So what's up with letting idiot candidates whip up mass hysteria & hate & claw each other to pieces? When one gets a majority & others drop out, maybe "the nominee" gets knocked off (by some "radical" "leftist" OWS "dem" [black too?] can we say "cia+mossad"?) The left & obama are revealed as America's real enemies.

Nominee-less with committed delegates freed, the George Orwell Party calls in a "reluctant hero" (unsullied by the primaries) who "be-grudgingly" accepts The Party's nomination to lead the war against america's internal enemies. the old guard is relieved; fox, tp, nra, & other hatemongers are vindicated; the MIC & wall st get what they want. plus battlefield america becomes real profitable, it cuts shipping costs & keeps jobs here.

+1 # Cambridgemac 2012-01-28 09:07

Wow. Great imagination. This really could happen and it hadn't occurred to me. (I think imagination is key to progress.)

I think you should write it up with more detail, though, and peddle it as fiction. And make some dough. NOW! This would make a great novella. (And might prevent it from occurring.)

+2 # wrodwell 2012-01-28 04:49

The thing Fox News does best is sports programming and politics is just another sport to them - a blood sport. I wonder, how many payrolls Fox News alumnus Newt Gingrich is on? Let's see, there's Freddie Mac, Fannie May, Fox News.......the list goes on. Fox is not a news outlet; it's an infection.

+2 # walt 2012-01-28 06:06

It is well-deserved by the GOP and their media cronies at Fox News. They are now a party filled with hatred and bigotry, especially against a black president, and now they are seeing the results of abandoning the people just to remove a president.

Can we speed along their demise?

+3 # TomDegan 2012-01-28 06:16

Every once in a while, I'll tape an entire, two hour segment of the morning "news" program, FOX and Friends. It is the modern equivalent of watching the old, 1965 movie, Hold On! starring the deservedly forgotten British pop group, Herman's Hermits: so mind-numbingly awful that it's actually fun to watch! The very fact that this lame assemblage of info-taining, trivial nonsense is the highest rated morning cable program is instructive when trying to get to the bottom of the question as to why the American people are the dumbest, least informed, unenlightened people in the entire western world and why we are - no doubt about it - the laughingstock of the planet.

It's three hosts are totally lacking in any real journalistic credentials. Indeed one of them, an amiable twit named Steve Doocy (whose last name will one day become a verb, I promise you), is a former TV weatherman. He now has the job of commenting daily on important matters of national and international concern - that is, when he's able to find the time to pry himself away from the latest Brittany or Paris scandal du jour. FOX and Friends is embarrassing any way you analyze it. It is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. It's message is as simplistic as it is unbalanced:
`
Conservative: GOOD. Liberal: BAD. Think of it as Mallard Fillmore in real time.

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

+1 # RMDC 2012-01-28 06:19

This is good. FOX news began as a republican party project for mass propaganda and now it has taken over the party itself. The NRA did a similar thing. So did the National Right to Life Coalition. The problems is that the untra-right wing which runs all these organizations is more aggressive than what is left of the main stream republicans.

I see a real disaster coming. It might just be in FOX employee Newt taking the White House. Newt is psychologically and morally unstable, just as are FOX's main anchors -- O'Reilly, Hannity, and others. The lunatics will be in control of the asylum. All hell will break loose. But that may be the final implosion of the US that we need. Obama and his type just keep a bankrupt and criminal regime in washinton going. Maybe we need a Newt to push it to the collapse.

+1 # kyzipster 2012-01-28 06:33

I'm not sure if Fox News is the cause or just one of many symptoms. One thing is certain, the lunatics have taken control of the asylum. Republican strategists have been feeding the lies and propaganda that divide the nation for decades because they can't win on an economic agenda that dis-empowers working people, ultimately they're to blame.

On the bright side, the conservative movement of the last 30 years continues to self destruct. Conservatives can no longer campaign on deregulation and tax cuts so the desperation and hate of the culture war in this election season is no surprise. They will have to move to the center or become even more irrelevant.

0 # lnason@umassd.edu 2012-01-28 06:36

This article is not surprising given Politico's recent report:

"The liberal group Media Matters has quietly transformed itself in preparation for what its founder, David Brock, described in an interview as an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel.

The group, launched as a more traditional media critic, has all but abandoned its monitoring of newspapers and other television networks and is narrowing its focus to Fox and a handful of conservative websites, which its leaders view as political organizations and the “nerve center” of the conservative movement. The shift reflects the centrality of the cable channel to the contemporary conservative movement, as well as the loathing it inspires among liberals — not least among the donors who fund Media Matters’ staff of about 90, who are arrayed in neat rows in a giant war room above Massachusetts Avenue.

“The strategy that we had had toward Fox was basically a strategy of containment,” said Brock, Media Matters’ chairman and founder and a former conservative journalist, adding that the group’s main aim had been to challenge the factual claims of the channel and to attempt to prevent them from reaching the mainstream media.

The new strategy, he said, is a “war on Fox.”

Lee Nason
New Bedford, Massachusetts

+1 # kyzipster 2012-01-28 08:16

That doesn't explain David Frum's opinion that Fox News is an 'alternative knowledge system'. In other words, complete BS.

0 # Cambridgemac 2012-01-28 09:10

riiigghht
Fox is a victim of Librul Conspiracy.
Waaah

0 # cstern 2012-01-28 06:40

"Reigns" is a verb; "reins" is a noun.

+2 # humanmancalvin 2012-01-28 07:35

Love it..a story of the mother shark eating her own.

0 # pernsey 2012-01-28 08:54

Fox news is a boil on the backside of the American people. Slowly infecting all areas of our lives, while blaming everyone else for what they are doing. Then hiding behind Christianity, and Jesus...who probably could never get air time on Fox news unless they would be mocking Him. Fox news is a sad joke, that for awhile worked, it has brainwashed so many people with their lies and misinformation. I know the people who follow Fox really think they are right, and they spread the lies as if it were the truth. They are ignorant, they dont know any better, or they dont want to know any better.

Fox has won court cases where they were told its ok to lie. I read one case where Fox paid a reporter to investigate something they wanted to slam, when the reporter said the information was correct and wanted to print that information, Fox took them to court and Fox won. Lying is ok, because Fox has the courts backing up their lies. Im sure there probably was a big payola to the judge whomever he was or he was a right wing tool and just went along, no matter, Fox has a legal right to lie on their news. I hope the truth comes out about all of it.

They have no business reporting anything but sports, they are a travesty to Americans and our way of life.

Google Privacy Policy Update Challenged by Lawmakers

2012-01-28T14:00:00.000-05:00

Google Privacy Policy Update Challenged by Lawmakers

By: Clint Boulton
2012-01-28
Article Rating: / 3

There are 3 user comments on this IT Security & Network Security News & Reviews story.

Google is under fire in Congress for its new privacy policy changes to unify user information from 60 Web services under one single policy.

Several U.S. senators Jan. 26 fired off a bipartisan letter to Google CEO Larry Page, asking for more information about the search engine provider's revised privacy policy.
Google Jan. 24 announced that it will aggregate 60 of its Web services under one single privacy policy.
Under this new policy, a user with a Google account who signs into Google's search, YouTube, Gmail and other applications is treated as the same individual across all of those services, and data may be shared between those services. Consumers may not opt out of this change, which goes into effect March 1.
Pundits seized on this change to argue that Google is trampling user privacy rights to aggregate user identity to help it better compete with Facebook for targeted advertising dollars.
Eight U.S. senators took exception to the move. They sent Page their letter, signed by Reps. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif.; Cliff Stearns, R-Fla.; Edward J. Markey, D-Mass.; Joe Barton, R-Texas; Diana DeGette, D-Colo.; Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; G. K. Butterfield, D-N.C.; and Jackie Speier, D-Calif.
The senators are concerned that consumers cannot opt out of the new policy and wonder whether the plan will adequately protect users' privacy rights.
They asked how the new rules will affect the tens of millions of users of Android smartphones. Users access a lot of data from Android phones by signing in with their Google accounts. They are also concerned about how the revision affects children and teen users of Google services.
"We believe that consumers should have the ability to opt out of data collection when they are not comfortable with a company's terms of service and that ability to exercise that choice should be simple and straightforward," they wrote to Page. They want a response by the middle of February.
Markey added in a separate statement that he plans to ask the Federal Trade Commission whether Google's new privacy policies violate its settlement with the agency. Google in 2011 settled with the FTC over its Google Buzz social media service, which violated the privacy rights of Gmail users.
As part of the settlement, Google agreed not to misrepresent its privacy practices or change the way it uses or shares consumer data without obtaining consent first.
Google Policy Manager Betsy Masiello sought to clear up concerns in a corporate blog post, where she wrote that Google isn't collecting any more data on users with the policy change, and that it is trying to simplify access to its products and services.
"You still have choice and control," Masiello wrote Jan. 26. "You don't need to log in to use many of our services, including Search, Maps and YouTube."
She added that logged-in users may still edit or turn off Search history, switch Gmail chat to "off the record," and control the way Google tailors ads to users' interests, among other privacy-protection measures.

Google FAQ

2012-01-28T13:58:00.001-05:00

FAQ

Should I take the time to read the new Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service?

Absolutely! Legal documents can make for dry reading, but these really matter. So whether you are new to Google or a long-time user, please take the time to get to know our practices. In case you’re pressed for time, here are answers to some of your questions.

What’s different about the new Privacy Policy?

First, we’ve rewritten the main Google Privacy Policy from top to bottom to be simpler and more readable. The new policy replaces more than 60 existing product-specific privacy documents. This all should make it easier for you to learn about what data we collect and how we use it.
Second, the new policy reflects our efforts to create one beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google. It makes clear that, if you have a Google Account and are signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we can treat you as a single user across all our products.

What’s different about the new Google Terms of Service?

We’ve rewritten them, too—to make them more readable and to reduce the repetition and legalese. The terms explain more simply the legal terms associated with the use of our services, including how we treat content that users submit. We’ve also consolidated many of our terms, with most products now using the Google Terms of Service and dozens fewer products than before using additional or separate terms.

What’s staying the same with Google’s approach to privacy?

Our goal remains to provide you with as much transparency and choice as possible, and our privacy principles remain unchanged. That’s why we support products like Google Dashboard, Ads Preferences Manager, and other tools that help you understand and manage your data. Moreover, we never sell personal information or share it without your permission (other than in rare circumstances like valid legal requests).

What choices do I have to control how my information is used?

You still have choice and control. You don’t need to sign in to use many of our services, including Search, Maps and YouTube. If you’re signed in, you can still edit or turn off your Search history, switch Gmail chat to “off the record,” control the way Google tailors ads to your interests, use Incognito mode on Chrome, or use any of the other privacy tools we offer. The Google Dashboard is an excellent starting point if you want to understand the data associated with each product you use and control your personal data settings on Google.

Is Google collecting more information about me?

No, Google is not collecting more data about you. Our new policy simply makes it clear that we use data to refine and improve your experience on Google across the services you sign in to use. This is something we’ve already been doing and we plan to continue doing in the future so we can provide a simpler, more intuitive experience.

Does this change mean Google plans to disclose information about me publicly?

Absolutely not. You still have choice and control in what you share. Our new policy simply makes it clear that when you’re signed in, we use data to refine and improve your own personal experience on Google. We’re making our policy simpler with this change and we’re trying to be upfront about it.

What should I expect to see change as a result of this?

Over time you can expect to see better search results, ads and other content when you’re using Google services. A more consistent user experience across Google might mean that we give you more accurate spelling suggestions because you’ve typed them before. Or maybe we can tell you that you’ll be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and the local traffic conditions. Google users still have to do too much heavy lifting, and we want to do a better job of helping them.
We’ll continue to work hard to make sure that any innovation is balanced with the appropriate level of privacy and security for our users, as we promise in our Privacy Principles.

What if I don’t want to use Google under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service?

If you continue to use Google services after March 1, you’ll be doing so under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. If you’d prefer to close your Google Account, you can follow the instructions in our help center. We remain committed to data liberation, so if you want to take your information elsewhere you can.

Under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, will my private information in Google services remain private?

Yes. As before, we won’t share our users’ personal information without their permission except in very limited circumstances like a valid court order. For more detail, please read the section of the new Privacy Policy called “Information we share.”

Will Google sell my personal information to third parties?

No. We don’t sell our users’ personal information. It’s simply not how we operate.

Why are you keeping privacy notices for some products, like Books and Chrome, but not others?

In some cases, such as for financial services like Google Wallet, a product may be regulated by industry-specific privacy laws and require detailed descriptions of our practices. In others, like Chrome, we simply wanted to explain our privacy practices specific to those products in more detail. In these cases we chose to keep product-specific notices rather than clutter up the main Privacy Policy.

How can I see what Google knows about me?

Google Dashboard is a good start. It shows you what information is stored in your Google Account and enables you to change your privacy settings for many products from one central location.
We try hard to be transparent about the information we collect, and to give you meaningful choices about how it is used. To learn about more of the tools Google offers to help you manage your privacy, visit Good to Know.

Google's New Terms of Service

2012-01-28T13:57:00.002-05:00

Google Terms of Service

This Google Terms of Service will be effective March 1, 2012, and will replace the existing Google Terms of Service. Please see our overview page for additional details.

Last modified: March 1, 2012

Welcome to Google!

Thanks for using our products and services (“Services”). The Services are provided by Google Inc. (“Google”), located at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States.
By using our Services, you are agreeing to these terms. Please read them carefully.
Our Services are very diverse, so sometimes additional terms or product requirements (including age requirements) may apply. Additional terms will be available with the relevant Services, and those additional terms become part of your agreement with us if you use those Services.

Using our Services

You must follow any policies made available to you within the Services.
Don’t misuse our Services. For example, don’t interfere with our Services or try to access them using a method other than the interface and the instructions that we provide. You may use our Services only as permitted by law, including applicable export and re-export control laws and regulations. We may suspend or stop providing our Services to you if you do not comply with our terms or policies or if we are investigating suspected misconduct.
Using our Services does not give you ownership of any intellectual property rights in our Services or the content you access. You may not use content from our Services unless you obtain permission from its owner or are otherwise permitted by law. These terms do not grant you the right to use any branding or logos used in our Services. Don’t remove, obscure, or alter any legal notices displayed in or along with our Services.
Our Services display some content that is not Google’s. This content is the sole responsibility of the entity that makes it available. We may review content to determine whether it is illegal or violates our policies, and we may remove or refuse to display content that we reasonably believe violates our policies or the law. But that does not necessarily mean that we review content, so please don’t assume that we do.
In connection with your use of the Services, we may send you service announcements, administrative messages, and other information. You may opt out of some of those communications.

Your Google Account

You may need a Google Account in order to use some of our Services. You may create your own Google Account, or your Google Account may be assigned to you by an administrator, such as your employer or educational institution. If you are using a Google Account assigned to you by an administrator, different or additional terms may apply and your administrator may be able to access or disable your account.
If you learn of any unauthorized use of your password or account, follow these instructions.

Privacy and Copyright Protection

Google’s privacy policies explain how we treat your personal data and protect your privacy when you use our Services. By using our Services, you agree that Google can use such data in accordance with our privacy policies.
We respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement and terminate accounts of repeat infringers according to the process set out in the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
We provide information to help copyright holders manage their intellectual property online. If you think somebody is violating your copyrights and want to notify us, you can find information about submitting notices and Google’s policy about responding to notices in our Help Center.

Your Content in our Services

Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.
When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.
You can find more information about how Google uses and stores content in the privacy policy or additional terms for particular Services. If you submit feedback or suggestions about our Services, we may use your feedback or suggestions without obligation to you.

About Software in our Services

When a Service requires or includes downloadable software, this software may update automatically on your device once a new version or feature is available. Some Services may let you adjust your automatic update settings.
Google gives you a personal, worldwide, royalty-free, non-assignable and non-exclusive license to use the software provided to you by Google as part of the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling you to use and enjoy the benefit of the Services as provided by Google, in the manner permitted by these terms. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, or lease any part of our Services or included software, nor may you reverse engineer or attempt to extract the source code of that software, unless laws prohibit those restrictions or you have our written permission.
Open source software is important to us. Some software used in our Services may be offered under an open source license that we will make available to you. There may be provisions in the open source license that expressly override some of these terms.

Modifying and Terminating our Services

We are constantly changing and improving our Services. We may add or remove functionalities or features, and we may suspend or stop a Service altogether.
You can stop using our Services at any time, although we’ll be sorry to see you go. Google may also stop providing Services to you, or add or create new limits to our Services at any time.
We believe that you own your data and preserving your access to such data is important. If we discontinue a Service, where reasonably possible, we will give you reasonable advance notice and a chance to get information out of that Service.

Our Warranties and Disclaimers

We provide our Services using a commercially reasonable level of skill and care and we hope that you will enjoy using them. But there are certain things that we don’t promise about our Services.
OTHER THAN AS EXPRESSLY SET OUT IN THESE TERMS OR ADDITIONAL TERMS, NEITHER GOOGLE NOR ITS SUPPLIERS OR DISTRIBUTORS MAKE ANY SPECIFIC PROMISES ABOUT THE SERVICES. FOR EXAMPLE, WE DON’T MAKE ANY COMMITMENTS ABOUT THE CONTENT WITHIN THE SERVICES, THE SPECIFIC FUNCTION OF THE SERVICES, OR THEIR RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, OR ABILITY TO MEET YOUR NEEDS. WE PROVIDE THE SERVICES “AS IS”.
SOME JURISDICTIONS PROVIDE FOR CERTAIN WARRANTIES, LIKE THE IMPLIED WARRANTY OF THE MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE EXCLUDE ALL WARRANTIES.

Liability for our Services

WHEN PERMITTED BY LAW, GOOGLE, AND GOOGLE’S SUPPLIERS AND DISTRIBUTORS, WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUES, OR DATA, FINANCIAL LOSSES OR INDIRECT, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES.
TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE TOTAL LIABILITY OF GOOGLE, AND ITS SUPPLIERS AND DISTRIBUTORS, FOR ANY CLAIM UNDER THESE TERMS, INCLUDING FOR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES, IS LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US TO USE THE SERVICES (OR, IF WE CHOOSE, TO SUPPLYING YOU THE SERVICES AGAIN).
IN ALL CASES, GOOGLE, AND ITS SUPPLIERS AND DISTRIBUTORS, WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE THAT IS NOT REASONABLY FORESEEABLE.

Business uses of our Services

If you are using our Services on behalf of a business, that business accepts these terms. It will hold harmless and indemnify Google and its affiliates, officers, agents, and employees from any claim, suit or action arising from or related to the use of the Services or violation of these terms, including any liability or expense arising from claims, losses, damages, suits, judgments, litigation costs and attorneys’ fees.

About these Terms

We may modify these terms or any additional terms that apply to a Service to, for example, reflect changes to the law or changes to our Services. You should look at the terms regularly. We’ll post notice of modifications to these terms on this page. We’ll post notice of modified additional terms in the applicable Service. Changes will not apply retroactively and will become effective no sooner than fourteen days after they are posted. However, changes addressing new functions for a Service or changes made for legal reasons will be effective immediately. If you do not agree to the modified terms for a Service, you should discontinue your use of that Service.
If there is a conflict between these terms and the additional terms, the additional terms will control for that conflict.
These terms control the relationship between Google and you. They do not create any third party beneficiary rights.
If you do not comply with these terms, and we don’t take action right away, this doesn’t mean that we are giving up any rights that we may have (such as taking action in the future).
If it turns out that a particular term is not enforceable, this will not affect any other terms.
The laws of California, U.S.A., excluding California’s conflict of laws rules, will apply to any disputes arising out of or relating to these terms or the Services. All claims arising out of or relating to these terms or the Services will be litigated exclusively in the federal or state courts of Santa Clara County, California, USA, and you and Google consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.
For information about how to contact Google, please visit our contact page.

Google's New Privacy Policy

2012-01-28T13:56:00.002-05:00

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy will be replaced with our new Privacy Policy, effective March 1, 2012. Please see our overview page for additional details.

Last modified: October 20, 2011 (view archived versions)
This Privacy Policy applies to all of the products, services and websites offered by Google Inc. or its subsidiaries or affiliated companies except Postini (Postini Privacy Policy). Sometimes, we may post product specific privacy notices or Help Center materials to explain our products in more detail.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us through our website or write to us at

Privacy Matters
c/o Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, California, 94043
USA

Information we collect and how we use it

We may collect the following types of information:

Information you provide – When you sign up for a Google Account, we ask you for personal information. We may combine the information you submit under your account with information from other Google services or third parties in order to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our services. For certain services, we may give you the opportunity to opt out of combining such information. You can use the Google Dashboard to learn more about the information associated with your Account. If you are using Google services in conjunction with your Google Apps Account, Google provides such services in conjunction with or on behalf of your domain administrator. Your administrator will have access to your account information including your email. Consult your domain administrator’s privacy policy for more information.
Cookies – When you visit Google, we send one or more cookies to your computer or other device. We use cookies to improve the quality of our service, including for storing user preferences, improving search results and ad selection, and tracking user trends, such as how people search. Google also uses cookies in its advertising services to help advertisers and publishers serve and manage ads across the web and on Google services.
Log information – When you access Google services via a browser, application or other client our servers automatically record certain information. These server logs may include information such as your web request, your interaction with a service, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser or your account.
User communications – When you send email or other communications to Google, we may retain those communications in order to process your inquiries, respond to your requests and improve our services. When you send and receive SMS messages to or from one of our services that provides SMS functionality, we may collect and maintain information associated with those messages, such as the phone number, the wireless carrier associated with the phone number, the content of the message, and the date and time of the transaction. We may use your email address to communicate with you about our services.
Affiliated Google Services on other sites – We offer some of our services on or through other web sites. Personal information that you provide to those sites may be sent to Google in order to deliver the service. We process such information under this Privacy Policy.
Third Party Applications – Google may make available third party applications, such as gadgets or extensions, through its services. The information collected by Google when you enable a third party application is processed under this Privacy Policy. Information collected by the third party application provider is governed by their privacy policies.
Location data – Google offers location-enabled services, such as Google Maps and Latitude. If you use those services, Google may receive information about your actual location (such as GPS signals sent by a mobile device) or information that can be used to approximate a location (such as a cell ID).
Unique application number – Certain services, such as Google Toolbar, include a unique application number that is not associated with your account or you. This number and information about your installation (e.g., operating system type, version number) may be sent to Google when you install or uninstall that service or when that service periodically contacts our servers (for example, to request automatic updates to the software).
Other sites – This Privacy Policy applies to Google services only. We do not exercise control over the sites displayed as search results, sites that include Google applications, products or services, or links from within our various services. These other sites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you.

In addition to the above, we may use the information we collect to:

Provide, maintain, protect, and improve our services (including advertising services) and develop new services; and
Protect the rights or property of Google or our users.

If we use this information in a manner different than the purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use.
Google processes personal information on our servers in the United States of America and in other countries. In some cases, we process personal information outside your own country.

Choices

You can use the Google Dashboard to review and control the information stored in your Google Account.
Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some Google features and services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.
Google uses the DoubleClick advertising cookie on AdSense partner sites and certain Google services to help advertisers and publishers serve and manage ads across the web. You can view and manage your ads preferences associated with this cookie by accessing the Ads Preferences Manager. In addition, you may choose to opt out of the DoubleClick cookie at any time by using DoubleClick’s opt-out cookie.

Information sharing

Google only shares personal information with other companies or individuals outside of Google in the following limited circumstances:

We have your consent. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.
We provide such information to our subsidiaries, affiliated companies or other trusted businesses or persons for the purpose of processing personal information on our behalf. We require that these parties agree to process such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.

If Google becomes involved in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale of some or all of its assets, we will ensure the confidentiality of any personal information involved in such transactions and provide notice before personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Information security

We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, including appropriate encryption and physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store personal data.
We restrict access to personal information to Google employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to process it on our behalf. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet these obligations.

Accessing and updating personal information

When you use Google services, we make good faith efforts to provide you with access to your personal information and either to correct this data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data at your request if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes. We ask individual users to identify themselves and the information requested to be accessed, corrected or removed before processing such requests, and we may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup tapes), or for which access is not otherwise required. In any case where we provide information access and correction, we perform this service free of charge, except if doing so would require a disproportionate effort. Because of the way we maintain certain services, after you delete your information, residual copies may take a period of time before they are deleted from our active servers and may remain in our backup systems. Please review the service Help Centers for more information.

Enforcement

Google complies with the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework and the U.S.-Swiss Safe Harbor Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information from European Union member countries and Switzerland. Google has certified that it adheres to the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles of notice, choice, onward transfer, security, data integrity, access, and enforcement. To learn more about the Safe Harbor program, and to view Google’s certification, please visit the Safe Harbor website.
Google regularly reviews its compliance with this Privacy Policy. When we receive formal written complaints, it is Google’s policy to contact the complaining user regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be resolved between Google and an individual.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. We will post any Privacy Policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain services, email notification of Privacy Policy changes). We will also keep prior versions of this Privacy Policy in an archive for your review.

Prepared Remarks of Gov. Mitch Daniels’s Republican Address to the Nation

2012-01-24T23:39:00.000-05:00

January 24, 2012

Prepared Remarks of Gov. Mitch Daniels’s Republican Address to the Nation

Following is the full text of Gov. Mitch Daniels’s Republican Address to the Nation, as prepared for delivery:

“The status of ‘loyal opposition’ imposes on those out of power some serious responsibilities: to show respect for the Presidency and its occupant, to express agreement where it exists. Republicans tonight salute our President, for instance, for his aggressive pursuit of the murderers of 9/11, and for bravely backing long overdue changes in public education. I personally would add to that list admiration for the strong family commitment that he and the First Lady have displayed to a nation sorely needing such examples.

“On these evenings, Presidents naturally seek to find the sunny side of our national condition. But when President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true.

“The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight. But he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse: the percentage of Americans with a job is at the lowest in decades. One in five men of prime working age, and nearly half of all persons under 30, did not go to work today.

“In three short years, an unprecedented explosion of spending, with borrowed money, has added trillions to an already unaffordable national debt. And yet, the President has put us on a course to make it radically worse in the years ahead. The federal government now spends one of every four dollars in the entire economy; it borrows one of every three dollars it spends. No nation, no entity, large or small, public or private, can thrive, or survive intact, with debts as huge as ours.

“The President’s grand experiment in trickle-down government has held back rather than sped economic recovery. He seems to sincerely believe we can build a middle class out of government jobs paid for with borrowed dollars. In fact, it works the other way: a government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class, and those who hope to join it.

“Those punished most by the wrong turns of the last three years are those unemployed or underemployed tonight, and those so discouraged that they have abandoned the search for work altogether. And no one has been more tragically harmed than the young people of this country, the first generation in memory to face a future less promising than their parents did.

“As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life’s ladder. We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves.

“In our economic stagnation and indebtedness, we are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain, and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe. But ours is a fortunate land. Because the world uses our dollar for trade, we have a short grace period to deal with our dangers. But time is running out, if we are to avoid the fate of Europe, and those once-great nations of history that fell from the position of world leadership.

“So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality. The challenges aren’t matters of ideology, or party preference; the problems are simply mathematical, and the answers are purely practical.

“An opposition that would earn its way back to leadership must offer not just criticism of failures that anyone can see, but a positive and credible plan to make life better, particularly for those aspiring to make a better life for themselves. Republicans accept this duty, gratefully.

“The routes back to an America of promise, and to a solvent America that can pay its bills and protect its vulnerable, start in the same place. The only way up for those suffering tonight, and the only way out of the dead end of debt into which we have driven, is a private economy that begins to grow and create jobs, real jobs, at a much faster rate than today.

“Contrary to the President’s constant disparagement of people in business, it’s one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs — what a fitting name he had — created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew. Out here in Indiana, when a businessperson asks me what he can do for our state, I say ‘First, make money. Be successful. If you make a profit, you’ll have something left to hire someone else, and some to donate to the good causes we love.’

“The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.

“That means a dramatically simpler tax system of fewer loopholes and lower rates. A pause in the mindless piling on of expensive new regulations that devour dollars that otherwise could be used to hire somebody. It means maximizing on the new domestic energy technologies that are the best break our economy has gotten in years.

“There is a second item on our national must-do list: we must unite to save the safety net. Medicare and Social Security have served us well, and that must continue. But after half and three quarters of a century respectively, it’s not surprising that they need some repairs. We can preserve them unchanged and untouched for those now in or near retirement, but we must fashion a new, affordable safety net so future Americans are protected, too.

“Decades ago, for instance, we could afford to send millionaires pension checks and pay medical bills for even the wealthiest among us. Now, we can’t, so the dollars we have should be devoted to those who need them most.

“The mortal enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who, in contempt of the plain arithmetic, continue to mislead Americans that we should change nothing. Listening to them much longer will mean that these proud programs implode, and take the American economy with them. It will mean that coming generations are denied the jobs they need in their youth and the protection they deserve in their later years.

“It’s absolutely so that everyone should contribute to our national recovery, including of course the most affluent among us. There are smart ways and dumb ways to do this: the dumb way is to raise rates in a broken, grossly complex tax system, choking off growth without bringing in the revenues we need to meet our debts. The better course is to stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy and do little or nothing to foster growth.

“It’s not fair and it’s not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions. They and they alone have passed bills to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements, and encourage new job creation, only to be shot down time and time again by the President and his DemocraticSenate allies.

“This year, it falls to Republicans to level with our fellow citizens about this reality: if we fail to act to grow the private sector and save the safety net, nothing else will matter much. But to make such action happen, we also must work, in ways we Republicans have not always practiced, to bring Americans together.

“No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others. As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category. If we fail to shift to a pro-jobs, pro-growth economic policy, there will never be enough public revenue to pay for our safety net, national security, or whatever size government we decide to have.

“As a loyal opposition, who put patriotism and national success ahead of party or ideology or any self-interest, we say that anyone who will join us in the cause of growth and solvency is our ally, and our friend. We will speak the language of unity. Let us rebuild our finances, and the safety net, and reopen the door to the stairway upward; any other disagreements we may have can wait.

“You know, the most troubling contention in our national life these days isn’t about economics, or policy at all. It’s about us, as a free people. In two alarming ways, that contention is that we Americans just can’t cut it anymore.

“In word and deed, the President and his allies tell us that we just cannot handle ourselves in this complex, perilous world without their benevolent protection. Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb!

“A second view, which I admit some Republicans also seem to hold, is that we Americans are no longer up to the job of self-government. We can’t do the simple math that proves the unaffordability of today’s safety net programs, or all the government we now have. We will fall for the con job that says we can just plow ahead and someone else will pick up the tab. We will allow ourselves to be pitted one against the other, blaming our neighbor for troubles worldwide trends or our own government has caused.

“2012 must be the year we prove the doubters wrong. The year we strike out boldly not merely to avert national bankruptcy but to say to a new generation that America is still the world’s premier land of opportunity. Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen; who believe that government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them; who trust Americans enough to tell them the plain truth about the fix we are in, and to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing.

“We will advance our positive suggestions with confidence, because we know that Americans are still a people born to liberty. There is nothing wrong with the state of our Union that the American people, addressed as free-born, mature citizens, cannot set right. Republicans in 2012 welcome all our countrymen to a program of renewal that rebuilds the dream for all, and makes our ‘city on a hill’ shine once again.”

Obama's State of the Union address: Full text

2012-01-24T23:36:00.000-05:00

January 24, 2012 9:11 PM

Obama's State of the Union address: Full text

12 Comments Have Your Say

Below, President Obama's 2012 State of the Union address, as prepared for delivery and provided by the White House:
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:
Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought - and several thousand gave their lives.
We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda's top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban's momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.
These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America's Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They're not consumed with personal ambition. They don't obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we're in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren't so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.
We can do this. I know we can, because we've done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known. My grandfather, a veteran of Patton's Army, got the chance to go to college on the GI Bill. My grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line, was part of a workforce that turned out the best products on Earth.
The two of them shared the optimism of a Nation that had triumphed over a depression and fascism. They understood they were part of something larger; that they were contributing to a story of success that every American had a chance to share - the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

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The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What's at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.
Let's remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. Technology made businesses more efficient, but also made some jobs obsolete. Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before, but most hardworking Americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren't, and personal debt that kept piling up.
In 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn't afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other people's money. Regulators had looked the other way, or didn't have the authority to stop the bad behavior.
It was wrong. It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work, saddled us with more debt, and left innocent, hard-working Americans holding the bag. In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect.
Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. Together, we've agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion. And we've put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again.
The state of our Union is getting stronger. And we've come too far to turn back now. As long as I'm President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.
No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last - an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.
This blueprint begins with American manufacturing.
On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world's number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.
We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.
What's happening in Detroit can happen in other industries. It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh. We can't bring back every job that's left our shores. But right now, it's getting more expensive to do business in places like China. Meanwhile, America is more productive. A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home. Today, for the first time in fifteen years, Master Lock's unionized plant in Milwaukee is running at full capacity.
So we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.
We should start with our tax code. Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it.
So let's change it. First, if you're a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn't get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home.
Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here.
Third, if you're an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you're a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making products here. And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers.
My message is simple. It's time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I'll sign them right away.
We're also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world. Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements I signed into law, we are on track to meet that goal - ahead of schedule. Soon, there will be millions of new customers for American goods in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. Soon, there will be new cars on the streets of Seoul imported from Detroit, and Toledo, and Chicago.
I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products. And I will not stand by when our competitors don't play by the rules. We've brought trade cases against China at nearly twice the rate as the last administration - and it's made a difference. Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires. But we need to do more. It's not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated. It's not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they're heavily subsidized.
Tonight, I'm announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China. There will be more inspections to prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing our borders. And this Congress should make sure that no foreign company has an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing finance or new markets like Russia. Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you - America will always win.
I also hear from many business leaders who want to hire in the United States but can't find workers with the right skills. Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job. Think about that - openings at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work.
That's inexcusable. And we know how to fix it.
Jackie Bray is a single mom from North Carolina who was laid off from her job as a mechanic. Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte, and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College. The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training. It paid Jackie's tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant.
I want every American looking for work to have the same opportunity as Jackie did. Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job. My Administration has already lined up more companies that want to help. Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, Orlando, and Louisville are up and running. Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers - places that teach people skills that local businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing.
And I want to cut through the maze of confusing training programs, so that from now on, people like Jackie have one program, one website, and one place to go for all the information and help they need. It's time to turn our unemployment system into a reemployment system that puts people to work.
These reforms will help people get jobs that are open today. But to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow, our commitment to skills and education has to start earlier.
For less than one percent of what our Nation spends on education each year, we've convinced nearly every State in the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning - the first time that's happened in a generation.
But challenges remain. And we know how to solve them.
At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced States to lay off thousands of teachers. We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance. Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives. Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies - just to make a difference.
Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let's offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren't helping kids learn.
We also know that when students aren't allowed to walk away from their education, more of them walk the stage to get their diploma. So tonight, I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.
When kids do graduate, the most daunting challenge can be the cost of college. At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt, this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July. Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves middle-class families thousands of dollars. And give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years.
Of course, it's not enough for us to increase student aid. We can't just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we'll run out of money. States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets. And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down. Recently, I spoke with a group of college presidents who've done just that. Some schools re-design courses to help students finish more quickly. Some use better technology. The point is, it's possible. So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can't stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can't be a luxury - it's an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.
Let's also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren't yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else.
That doesn't make sense.
I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That's why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That's why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.
The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let's at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.
You see, an economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country. That means women should earn equal pay for equal work. It means we should support everyone who's willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs.
After all, innovation is what America has always been about. Most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses. So let's pass an agenda that helps them succeed. Tear down regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from getting the financing to grow. Expand tax relief to small businesses that are raising wages and creating good jobs. Both parties agree on these ideas. So put them in a bill, and get it on my desk this year.
Innovation also demands basic research. Today, the discoveries taking place in our federally-financed labs and universities could lead to new treatments that kill cancer cells but leave healthy ones untouched. New lightweight vests for cops and soldiers that can stop any bullet. Don't gut these investments in our budget. Don't let other countries win the race for the future. Support the same kind of research and innovation that led to the computer chip and the Internet; to new American jobs and new American industries.
Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I'm directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it's been in eight years. That's right - eight years. Not only that - last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.
But with only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, oil isn't enough. This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy - a strategy that's cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.
We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. And I'm requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.
The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don't have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock - reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.
What's true for natural gas is true for clean energy. In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world's leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries. Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled. And thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.
When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried that at 55, no one would give him a second chance. But he found work at Energetx, a wind turbine manufacturer in Michigan. Before the recession, the factory only made luxury yachts. Today, it's hiring workers like Bryan, who said, "I'm proud to be working in the industry of the future."
Our experience with shale gas shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don't always come right away. Some technologies don't pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.
We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there's no reason why Congress shouldn't at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven't acted. Well tonight, I will. I'm directing my Administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes. And I'm proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world's largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history - with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.
Of course, the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy. So here's another proposal: Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings. Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the next decade, and America will have less pollution, more manufacturing, and more jobs for construction workers who need them. Send me a bill that creates these jobs.
Building this new energy future should be just one part of a broader agenda to repair America's infrastructure. So much of America needs to be rebuilt. We've got crumbling roads and bridges. A power grid that wastes too much energy. An incomplete high-speed broadband network that prevents a small business owner in rural America from selling her products all over the world.
During the Great Depression, America built the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. After World War II, we connected our States with a system of highways. Democratic and Republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, from the workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today.
In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.
There's never been a better time to build, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest-hit when the housing bubble burst. Of course, construction workers weren't the only ones hurt. So were millions of innocent Americans who've seen their home values decline. And while Government can't fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn't have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.
That's why I'm sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won't add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.
Let's never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a Government and a financial system that do the same. It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.
We've all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, and buyers who knew they couldn't afford them. That's why we need smart regulations to prevent irresponsible behavior. Rules to prevent financial fraud, or toxic dumping, or faulty medical devices, don't destroy the free market. They make the free market work better.
There is no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly. In fact, I've approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his. I've ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don't make sense. We've already announced over 500 reforms, and just a fraction of them will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years. We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill - because milk was somehow classified as an oil. With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk.
I'm confident a farmer can contain a milk spill without a federal agency looking over his shoulder. But I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago. I will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury pollution, or making sure that our food is safe and our water is clean. I will not go back to the days when health insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women differently from men.

And I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules. The new rules we passed restore what should be any financial system's core purpose: Getting funding to entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and getting loans to responsible families who want to buy a home, start a business, or send a kid to college.
So if you're a big bank or financial institution, you are no longer allowed to make risky bets with your customers' deposits. You're required to write out a "living will" that details exactly how you'll pay the bills if you fail - because the rest of us aren't bailing you out ever again. And if you're a mortgage lender or a payday lender or a credit card company, the days of signing people up for products they can't afford with confusing forms and deceptive practices are over. Today, American consumers finally have a watchdog in Richard Cordray with one job: To look out for them.
We will also establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people's investments. Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there's no real penalty for being a repeat offender. That's bad for consumers, and it's bad for the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals who do the right thing. So pass legislation that makes the penalties for fraud count.
And tonight, I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.
A return to the American values of fair play and shared responsibility will help us protect our people and our economy. But it should also guide us as we look to pay down our debt and invest in our future.
Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let's agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.
When it comes to the deficit, we've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more, and that means making choices. Right now, we're poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else - like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we're serious about paying down our debt, we can't do both.
The American people know what the right choice is. So do I. As I told the Speaker this summer, I'm prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors.
But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you're earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn't get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn't go up. You're the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You're the ones who need relief.
Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.
We don't begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich. It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference - like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That's not right. Americans know it's not right. They know that this generation's success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country's future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That's how we'll reduce our deficit. That's an America built to last.
I recognize that people watching tonight have differing views about taxes and debt; energy and health care. But no matter what party they belong to, I bet most Americans are thinking the same thing right now: Nothing will get done this year, or next year, or maybe even the year after that, because Washington is broken.
Can you blame them for feeling a little cynical?
The greatest blow to confidence in our economy last year didn't come from events beyond our control. It came from a debate in Washington over whether the United States would pay its bills or not. Who benefited from that fiasco?
I've talked tonight about the deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street. But the divide between this city and the rest of the country is at least as bad - and it seems to get worse every year.
Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics. So together, let's take some steps to fix that. Send me a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress, and I will sign it tomorrow. Let's limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact. Let's make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can't lobby Congress, and vice versa - an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.
Some of what's broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days. A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything - even routine business - passed through the Senate. Neither party has been blameless in these tactics. Now both parties should put an end to it. For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.
The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it's inefficient, outdated and remote. That's why I've asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.
Finally, none of these reforms can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town. We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas.
I'm a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more. That's why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and States. That's why we're getting rid of regulations that don't work. That's why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program.
On the other hand, even my Republican friends who complain the most about Government spending have supported federally-financed roads, and clean energy projects, and federal offices for the folks back home.
The point is, we should all want a smarter, more effective Government. And while we may not be able to bridge our biggest philosophical differences this year, we can make real progress. With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow. But I can do a whole lot more with your help. Because when we act together, there is nothing the United States of America can't achieve.
That is the lesson we've learned from our actions abroad over the last few years.
Ending the Iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies. From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can't escape the reach of the United States of America.
From this position of strength, we've begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer. This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America.

As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sana'a to Tripoli. A year ago, Qadhafi was one of the world's longest-serving dictators - a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone. And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can't be reversed, and that human dignity can't be denied.
How this incredible transformation will end remains uncertain. But we have a huge stake in the outcome. And while it is ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well. We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings - men and women; Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty.
And we will safeguard America's own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests. Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.
The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe. Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever. Our ties to the Americas are deeper. Our iron-clad commitment to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history. We've made it clear that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope. From the coalitions we've built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we've led against hunger and disease; from the blows we've dealt to our enemies; to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back.
Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about. That's not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us. That's not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Cape Town to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they've been in years. Yes, the world is changing; no, we can't control every event. But America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs - and as long as I'm President, I intend to keep it that way.
That's why, working with our military leaders, I have proposed a new defense strategy that ensures we maintain the finest military in the world, while saving nearly half a trillion dollars in our budget. To stay one step ahead of our adversaries, I have already sent this Congress legislation that will secure our country from the growing danger of cyber-threats.
Above all, our freedom endures because of the men and women in uniform who defend it. As they come home, we must serve them as well as they served us. That includes giving them the care and benefits they have earned - which is why we've increased annual VA spending every year I've been President. And it means enlisting our veterans in the work of rebuilding our Nation.
With the bipartisan support of this Congress, we are providing new tax credits to companies that hire vets. Michelle and Jill Biden have worked with American businesses to secure a pledge of 135,000 jobs for veterans and their families. And tonight, I'm proposing a Veterans Job Corps that will help our communities hire veterans as cops and firefighters, so that America is as strong as those who defend her.
Which brings me back to where I began. Those of us who've been sent here to serve can learn from the service of our troops. When you put on that uniform, it doesn't matter if you're black or white; Asian or Latino; conservative or liberal; rich or poor; gay or straight. When you're marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. When you're in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one Nation, leaving no one behind.
One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden. On it are each of their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn't matter. Just like it didn't matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates - a man who was George Bush's defense secretary; and Hillary Clinton, a woman who ran against me for president.
All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves. One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn't deserve credit for the mission. It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job - the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs. More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other - because you can't charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there's someone behind you, watching your back.
So it is with America. Each time I look at that flag, I'm reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes. No one built this country on their own. This Nation is great because we built it together. This Nation is great because we worked as a team. This Nation is great because we get each other's backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we're joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.
Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Yemeni President Leaves, Heading for U.S.

2012-01-22T13:18:00.000-05:00

January 22, 2012

Yemeni President Leaves, Heading for U.S.

By LAURA KASINOF

Yemen’s outgoing president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, left Yemen on Sunday and will travel to New York for medical treatment, Yemeni officials said.
Mr. Saleh will stop first in the neighboring country of Oman, and then continue to the United States, where he is expected to arrive by Wednesday, a high-ranking official close to Mr. Saleh said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that Mr. Saleh was reluctant to travel, but he required treatment outside of the country for injuries he sustained in a bomb attack on the presidential palace in June.
Mr. Saleh, who has faced a year of protests and international pressure calling for the end of his 33-year rule, had previously made contradictory statements about whether he would leave the county and when he would leave office. In December, he said he was leaving Yemen for treatment in the United States, and then reversed himself two weeks later.
There were reports over the weekend that Mr. Saleh planned to move to Oman, but in a televised speech on Sunday, he said he would return to Yemen after his treatment was finished. He also asked the country for “pardon for any failure that occurred during my tenure.”
Mr. Saleh agreed in November to leave power in exchange for immunity from prosecution, in a deal brokered by Gulf countries. Hundreds of people have been killed in the past year in attacks by security forces and pro-government militias, and protesters and human rights groups have demanded that he be tried for those deaths.
On Saturday, Parliament passed an immunity law granting him immunity, and extending the law to cover all of his subordinates who committed politically motivated crimes. Parliament also approved Vice President Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi as the consensus candidate for the presidential elections slated for Feb. 21.
Mr. Saleh handed over some of his duties to Mr. Hadi after he signed the agreement in November, but continued to wield power. After the elections, Mr. Saleh is officially supposed to officially step down from office.
In his speech on Sunday, Mr. Saleh called for reconciliation and urged Yemenis to work together to reconstruct their country.
Speaking directly to the protesters who have been camped out in sit-ins across the country for nearly a year, he said “go back to your homes, go back to your families.”
“I feel sorry for you and invite you to return to your house and start with a new page with the new leadership,” he said.

Boehner: Republicans may link pipeline to tax bill

2012-01-22T12:54:00.000-05:00

Boehner: Republicans may link pipeline to tax bill

Analysis & Opinion

WASHINGTON | Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:44pm EST

(Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday that Republicans may use an upcoming payroll tax cut bill to force President Barack Obama to approve the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.
"The Keystone pipeline is a prime example of a shovel-ready project that's been through every approval process here in Washington. Every option is on the table," Boehner said on Fox News Sunday.
"We're going to do everything we can to make sure this Keystone pipeline project is approved," he said.
Asked specifically about linking the project's approval to the payroll tax cut, Boehner replied: "We may. We may."
TransCanada Corp.'s $7 billion proposed pipeline to pump crude oil 1,661 miles from Canada to Texas has become a top priority for Republicans in Congress, who are promoting the project as a vital source of jobs during economic hard times.
Renewed efforts to force a decision on Keystone, which is strongly opposed by environmentalists, could result in another showdown with the White House if the pipeline is inserted in the payroll tax bill once again.
Obama rebuffed Republicans last week when his administration turned down TransCanada's application. The White Houses said a 60-day fast-track approval schedule, imposed by Congress, was too short to give adequate attention to potential environmental impacts.
The administration left open the door, however, saying it would consider new requests to build the pipeline.
Republican leaders have been signaling they want to get the tax issue off the agenda quickly, following a public relations disaster last month when they were viewed as standing in the way a temporary tax cut extension that ultimately was enacted.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday about Keystone. Members had asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to testify, but Kerri-Ann Jones, the State Department official in charge of the Keystone permit, will appear instead.
(Reporting by Bill Trott and Richard Cowan; Editing by Philip Barbara)

Walmart Blacklisted By Major Pension Fund Over Poor Labor Practices

2012-01-22T12:37:00.000-05:00

Walmart Blacklisted By Major Pension Fund Over Poor Labor Practices

First Posted: 1/5/12 01:57 PM ET Updated: 1/5/12 06:53 PM ET

A major pension fund and longtime investor in Walmart has blacklisted the retailing behemoth, citing poor labor practices and the company's anti-union stance as the driving force behind its rejection.
Walmart typically shrugs off criticism of its labor practices as union-driven propaganda and insists that its employees are happy and well-managed, but investing experts say that when one of the largest pension funds in the world divests, the company would be wise to listen to the message. It's the same message the American labor movement has been pushing for decades.
On Tuesday, the Netherlands' biggest pension fund, Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds, with more than $300 billion in assets, announced that it was blacklisting the largest retailer in the world for noncompliance with the United Nations' Global Compact principles. The Global Compact presents a set of core values relating to human rights, labor standards, the environment and anti-corruption efforts. Sixteen other companies were blacklisted along with Walmart, nearly all of them excluded for producing chemical or nuclear weapons that violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
ABP said on Wednesday that the decision to pull its investment from Walmart was not hasty. The fund declined to say how much money is involved, but according to ABP records, it had invested some 95 million euros, worth $121 million today, in U.S. Walmart stores as of June 30, 2011. The fund first sent a letter to Walmart executives in 2008, a year after ABP formalized its responsible-investing policy. Four years later, after many meetings with employees and all levels of management, ABP concluded the retail giant was still falling short.
Back in 2007, as ABP began to comb through its investments with an eye toward corporate responsibility, the fund was struck by the staggering number of lawsuits and National Labor Relations Board complaints against Walmart, explained Anna Pot, a senior sustainability specialist involved in the decision.
For four years, the fund met repeatedly with Walmart executives, trying to use its shareholder's influence to persuade the company to improve corporate practices, especially with regard to labor and the environment. There were some signs of improvement along the road: Last year's ABP Responsible Investment Report noted that "the company has taken steps in the right direction," pointing to the $100 million Walmart paid to settle court actions in November and December of 2009 alone. It also noted that, based on discussions with management, ABP felt that Walmart had changed its attitude toward unions.
But by January 2012, ABP decided that the company's time was up.

"There has been a change, but in the end we had to conclude that it was not enough," said Pot. "We felt that if the workers are not happy, then what does it mean for the company?"

A Walmart spokesperson declined to comment on the divestment, adding that the company never discusses investors' decisions to buy or sell, regardless of the circumstances.
UNIONS PUSH
Meanwhile, leaders at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) -- one of the key unions engaged in the decades-long battle to organize Walmart's massive workforce -- hailed ABP's decision as a message to the company and its other shareholders: Treating workers badly is bad for business.
ABP's decision also might suggest that one of the UFCW's more recent strategies could be bearing fruit.
After decades of failing to unionize employees at the retail goliath, American labor shifted its strategy. If Walmart's anti-union apparatus was too powerful for organizers to overcome, they would focus on shareholders and customers instead.
This past fall, a handful of Walmart workers and a union analyst showed up at Walmart's annual investor meeting to offer an unusual presentation of their own: a union-authored report and testimony from employees designed to convince outside investors that the company's much-criticized labor practices are diminishing its long-term value.
At the time, Walmart executives dismissed the group's claims, reportedly calling the employees a "bunch of malcontents" and describing the presentation as an attention-seeking stunt by union organizers to "further their own political and financial agenda."
But Pot, who attended that meeting, thought it was useful. Although it was not the only factor driving ABP's decision to divest, it was among them. Also high on the list: a job description found on Walmart's website last June, seeking a new director of labor relations whose listed duties included "support continued union free workplace."
Pot stressed that divestment was an action of last resort and that ABP would be happy to reinvest with Walmart should the company show that it was meeting international labor standards. But, she added, referring to the job advertisement, "so long as we see lines like that, we know that is not yet the case."
MORE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE
In the past decade, socially responsible investing (sometimes called activist investing) has become increasingly common. In the U.S. in 2010, nearly one of every eight dollars under professional money management followed some strategy of socially responsible investing. Since 2005, the pool of assets engaged in socially responsible investing has grown by more than 34 percent while the broader universe of professionally managed money has been stagnant, according to a report from the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment. This shift has come in part, experts say, because research has shown that good labor practices actually improve a company's performance rather than dragging it down.
According to research by Wharton finance professor Alex Edmans, companies that appear on Fortune magazine's annual list of the "100 Best Companies to Work For in America" also earned returns at a rate more than double that of the overall market.
"The perception used to be that socially responsible investors were hippies," Edmans said. "But they aren't tree-huggers. They are active money managers with lots of money."
Still, divesting from Walmart is hardly a widespread phenomenon. In 2006, the Government Pension Fund of Norway dumped more than $400 million worth of Walmart shares, also citing labor standards and union obstruction. But researchers at the UFCW could not name any major U.S. pension funds that had divested.
A spokesman for the New York State Common Retirement Fund said that in the fund's 90-year history, it has only divested once. In 2009, it pulled some $86.2 million in investments from companies doing business in Iran and Sudan, citing terrorism and genocide, respectively.
"We have a fiduciary duty, and that is really the main guide for us," said Eric Sumberg, a press secretary at the Office of the New York State Comptroller.
Most pension funds view divestment as the option of last resort, and a politically charged move. It also means relinquishing the opportunity to perhaps influence change at a company.
"It's a choice: Do you actively engage with the company or do you pull out?" said Nien-hê Hsieh, an associate professor of legal studies and business ethics and of philosophy at the Wharton School. "At the end of the day, it's not clear how much of divesting is about effecting change or taking a stand."

Inequality in 2012 by the Numbers

2012-01-22T12:32:00.000-05:00

Inequality in 2012 by the Numbers

How Far Are We from Making Dr. King’s Dream a Reality?

SOURCE: AP/ Staff

Martin Luther King Jr. was dedicated to combating poverty and increasing opportunities for people of all backgrounds, issues that we improve on today.

January 13, 2012

Martin Luther King Jr. was an outspoken advocate for the poor and less fortunate. At the time of his death, he was organizing a cross-racial Poor People’s Campaign that raised many issues still important today. Many Americans—particularly communities of color and young people—continue to lack access to economic opportunities and this must be addressed if we are to truly carry on Dr. King’s work.
This by-the-numbers piece takes a look at how many Americans are still struggling to find a way out of poverty, find employment, and gain both health care and education not only for themselves but for their families.
We will only realize Dr. King’s vision when every American has the chance to find a well-paying job, get health care when they get sick, and receive a quality education. The numbers below show much work remains.

Poverty

46.2 million: The number of Americans in poverty in 2010.
76.7 million: Number of people in families who were living below $44,000 for a family of four (two times the federal poverty line).
27.4: Percentage of African Americans in poverty.
26.6: Percentage of Hispanics in poverty.
9.9: Percentage of non-Hispanic whites in poverty.
45.3: Percentage of young adults facing poverty, when they are considered independently of their parents.
5.9 million: Number of young adults living with their parents. Those who aren’t saw a 9 percent decrease in their income.
39.1: Percentage of African American children less than 18 years old in poverty.
12.4: Percentage of white children less than 18 years old in poverty.

To start fixing this problem, it’s important that we grow the country’s number of low-skill jobs, so that those in poverty can begin to find a way out. We also need to maintain a solid safety net for those who can’t work, such as the elderly and the disabled.

Unemployment

December’s unemployment numbers were lower than they’ve been since February 2009, but many people are still struggling to find work, including minorities, young adults, and those without a high school diploma. Long-term unemployment also still remains a major problem.

13.1 million: Total number of unemployed Americans.
15.8: Percentage of African Americans facing unemployment.
11: Percentage of Hispanics facing unemployment.
23: Percentage of unemployed young adults, ages 16 to 19.
13.8: Percentage of unemployed people who didn’t graduate high school.

According to Christian E. Weller, an associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and a CAP Senior Fellow, long-term unemployment continues to affect many Americans:

42.5: Percentage of people unemployed for at least 27 weeks in December of 2011.
40.8: Average number of weeks unemployment lasted that month. This is higher than the December 2010 average of 34.2 weeks.

Weller says that in order to fight “[t]hese persistent and long-running weaknesses” we must give “continued policy attention with extended unemployment-insurance benefits, support for states and localities to maintain employment in education, health care, and other critical services, and infrastructure investment to buttress the blooming recovery in construction and manufacturing.”

Health care

Many Americans are also struggling to get health care—the most basic of needs. 49.1 million people under 65 didn’t have insurance in 2010.

41: Percentage of those under 65 in poverty without insurance.
22: Percentage of blacks under 65 without insurance.
32: Percentage of Hispanics under 65 without insurance.
14: Percentage of whites under 65 without insurance.

The Affordable Care Act, the health reform legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, can help these people get the coverage they need:

32 million: Number of people who will gain insurance under the Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act.
66 million: Number of people who could be insured under Medicaid by 2019. Under the Affordable Care Act, it’s anticipated that Medicaid will expand in 2014.

Education

As many of these same groups fight against poverty, unemployment, and finding affordable health care, they also struggle to attain a college degree and the chance to move up the economic ladder.

20.6: Percentage of African Americans, in March 2009, with at least a bachelor’s degree.
14: Percentage of Hispanics.
31.9: Percentage of whites.
20 percent less: Amount earned by African Americans with bachelor’s degrees versus whites with the same amount of education.
63: Percentage of all jobs in the next 10 years that will require at least some postsecondary education.
13: Percentage of African Americans getting higher education
22: Percentage of African Americans attending for-profit colleges. These colleges lead to more debt and lower post-graduation earnings, as well as less chance of finding a job for students who have no prior experience with higher education.

For-profit school students are also more likely to default on their loans:

20: Percentage who default on loans below $25,000.
12: Percentage of community college students who default on loans.
4: Percentage of nonprofit and four-year public school students who default on loans.

Congress should ensure that all students have access to quality, affordable college options by:

Using competitive grants to encourage the development of lower-cost college options
Increasing access to free, online courseware
Rewarding low-income students who persist through the first year of college with additional funding for internships or other work-study experiences
Holding colleges accountable for their students' outcomes by requiring colleges that receive federal financial aid funds to meet minimum standards for student success

For more on this topic please see:

Optimistic Jobs Report Masks Persistent Weaknesses by Christian E. Weller (The Wall Street Journal)
Public Opinion Snapshot: Americans Favor Action on Inequality by Ruy Teixeira
Economic Inequality Is Not Sustainable by Heather Boushey
10 Reasons Why Cutting Poverty Is Good for Our Nation by Desmond Brown (CAP Action)

Ken Clarke is ready to betray 800 years of British justice

2012-01-22T12:30:00.000-05:00

Ken Clarke is ready to betray 800 years of British justice

The security and justice green paper threatens to deprive us of one of the vital traditions of common law

Henry Porter
The Observer, Saturday 14 January 2012
Article history

Four of the earliest surviving copies of the Magna Carta on display at the Bodleian library, Oxford. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

First, the UK Bill of Rights Commission: has anyone seen it? Are we quite sure it exists in corporeal form? Do we know where its members meet? How come people are forming the impression that the UK Bill of Rights Commission is doing rather less for the public good than a home counties bridge party?
These questions haunt me because Kenneth Clarke, the secretary of state for justice, the man who set up the commission last spring to investigate a new bill of rights – no doubt with half an eye on the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta in 2015 – is also responsible for the justice and security green paper, which threatens to deprive us of one of the vital traditions of common law, guaranteed by Magna Carta. You could dignify this with the word irony, but it is just the usual story of politics and hypocrisy. While pacifying those who worry about liberty with a footling commission, composed largely of lawyers from left and right, who cancel each other out, Clarke proposes a vast extension of secrecy in the civil courts and inquests, which will suppress evidence of corruption and negligence in high places, as well as reduce access to justice and the public's right to know.
Sometimes, I wonder if Clarke, who is a QC, read the paper before it was published last autumn, because it is arguably more menacing to our legal traditions than anything dreamed up by his predecessor, Jack Straw. But he must have read it. Indeed, the high commands of the major parties have all read and apparently support the proposals that, in the case of the Liberal Democrats, amount to a historic betrayal of the principles of open justice.
Apart from the Tory MP David Davis, there is barely a whisper of opposition to the shoddy, self-serving and manifestly illiberal measures, which Clarke claims will improve executive accountability and provide "a court system equipped to deal with sensitive material and intelligence services that are able to get on with their job".
There you have the lies summarised. Now let's look at what the proposals will actually mean.
The most important point is that Clarke will provide a magic cloak of protection for any minister or government agency that wishes to cover up a wrong, most significantly for members of the intelligence services. Under his law, evidence that British officials were involved in the rendition and torture of British resident Binyam Mohammed could have been suppressed. Evidence that emerged last autumn that British spies arranged the rendition of two Libyan opposition figures to Gaddafi's people for torture may not, if Clarke gets his way, be heard in an open British court, because the minister will be able to declare the material "sensitive" or "against the public interest".
Those are vague concepts. Anything can be thus defined: the death of someone in police custody, the contamination resulting from a nuclear accident, the details of a government contract, or security lapses in a government laboratory, to say little of the matter of gentlemen with Muslim names being conveyed to some fetid, bloodstained cellar. Executive accountability will be reduced, not improved.
Once Clarke's apparatus is in place, it is likely to encourage a sense of immunity in officials, possibly the idea that they are above the law. The result will be a worse-run country, where the state grows incrementally more heedless and irresponsible – exactly the argument I made against, among other things, Jack Straw's proposal for secret inquests.
Over the last six years, I have stressed the dangers of the tendency of illiberal practices to spread through the system, after being introduced to deal with one discrete issue. Following controversy over the deportation of terror suspects, Labour established the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and introduced the "closed material procedure", which allowed evidence to be withheld from the individual and his legal team. Instead, it was revealed to a special advocate who supposedly protected the individual's interests, yet wasn't allowed any contact with him or his lawyers.
This shameful arrangement spread quickly. In numerous other contexts, the state used the "sensitive" label to make sure that evidence was not disclosed to the other party. Clarke's innovations will mean that closed material procedures and special advocates will become much more common in civil courts and inquests, denying the public knowledge of the misbehaviour and mistakes of officials – the people we pay for with our taxes. Our servants! It is retrograde and condescending in the extreme, but, worse still, it breaks the promise in Magna Carta, which says: "To no man will we sell, delay or deny justice."
Dinah Rose QC summarised the obvious advantage to ministers in her Atkin Memorial lecture last year. The legislation would, she said, "permit courts to try common law claims for damages using a closed material procedure, whenever a government minister, who is, of course, likely to be party to the action, decides that disclosure of particular material would be damaging to national security".
We are following America, where the state secrets privilege results in the exclusion of evidence from the proceedings simply on the basis of affidavits delivered to a court by the government, and this is going to make life very difficult for serious journalism in Britain. A response to the green paper from Guardian News and Media, owners of this newspaper, says Clarke's proposal would have a serious impact on the judicial process, court reporting and public interest journalism. Closed hearings, secret evidence and secret pleadings and judgments will result in the indefinite removal of information from the public domain.
The green paper is designed almost shamelessly to prevent information concerning such things as British involvement in Binyam Mohammed's torture reaching us. That motive tells you all you need to know about the rottenness of the proposal and why we should follow the example of the many special advocates who have voiced their opposition.
Clarke's fall-back position will probably be to guarantee the intelligence services immunity from scrutiny in open court, but given the absolute lack of opposition in Parliament he may get everything he wants, in which case we will all be worse off.
Which brings me to the UK Bill of Rights Commission and my conviction that if we are to have a new bill of rights, it is the public who must wrest this process from the lawyers, academics and former civil servants, working away to boost the credentials of politicians at the next election. Just as capitalism needs reform, so do the mechanisms that guarantee freedom, scrutiny and accountability. The English gave Magna Carta to the world 800 years ago; now we need to update it properly.

What Percent Are You? Enter your household income and see how you rank in 344 zones across the country.

2012-01-22T12:26:00.002-05:00

What Percent Are You?

Enter your household income and see how you rank in 344 zones across the country.

Flood-damaged homes in City of Binghamton, NY could receive federal buyouts

2012-01-22T12:25:00.000-05:00

Flood-damaged homes in City of Binghamton could receive federal buyouts

Structures in five neighborhoods may qualify

7:10 PM, Jan. 13, 2012 |
Comments

Purchase Image

The South Side neighborhood of Duke Street and Baltimore Avenue between

Conklin Avenue and the Susquehanna River is one of five city neighborhoods

being considered for potential buyouts from flood damage. / NANCY DOOLING / Staff Photo

Written by

Nancy Dooling

BINGHAMTON, NY -- City officials are targeting five neighborhoods where flood-ravaged structures may qualify for buyouts and demolition.
First, they need to know if property owners in the neighborhoods damaged by flood waters in September are interested -- or can afford the 25 percent of the total costs they'll have to pay -- said Tarik Abdelazim, the city's director of planning, housing and community development.
As of now, the city has no money available to help property owners meet 25 percent of the bill, he said.
"We are trying to come up with some money somewhere," Abdelazim said. "We are looking for other federal and state resources, and we'll definitely help the owners out in this situation if we can. But right now, we don't have the resources."
The city is looking at between 12 and 20 structures in two West Side neighborhoods, a portion of downtown, a South Side neighborhood and a section of the First Ward.
Under the buyout program, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reimburses the property owners 75 percent of the total eligible costs, including pre-disaster fair market value, appraisals, closing costs and demolition costs. Money will be awarded on a competitive basis.
The city is targeting neighborhoods that have seen repeated flood damage since at least 2004, Abdelazim said. Properties that qualify for buyouts are demolished and turned into green space, such as parks and public gardens. The properties cannot be developed again for residences or businesses.
City officials have been told by the State Emergency Management Organization, the New York state arm of FEMA, that federal buyout money is limited and the city should focus on neighborhoods with clusters of structures that have seen repeated flood damage rather than individual properties.
These include the lower end of Front Street, south of Riverside Drive; Avon and Lourdes roads and Charles Place near Lourdes Hospital; the downtown area of Tudor and Varrick streets; the Duke Street and Baltimore Avenue neighborhood off Conklin Avenue and the First Ward neighborhoods around Valley Street Park, including Valley Street and Winding Way.

Weighing options

Carol Grippen has lived on the end of Laurel Avenue, which intersects with Charles Place, for about two decades.
She loves living near the Susquehanna River on the city's West Side, but in 2006 she had two feet of flood water in her first floor.
Five years later, in September, the water crept three feet up her walls, wrecking a portion of her walls and kitchen cabinets, her flooring on the first floor, along with all her appliances, furnace and hot water heater. She wasn't able to move back in until the week before Christmas.
While her flood insurance covered $71,000 in damages, it won't pay for everything, she said. And she's still paying off a Small Business Administration loan she borrowed in 2006.
Grippen would consider a buyout, but said she needs more information about how the program works.
"I love this house. I love the neighborhood, but there's no way I can go through this again," she said.
Stacey Gould and Jim Ehmke will probably stay put at the lower end of Front Street on the city's West Side.
The couple's riverside house flooded in 2006 and again in 2011. They still haven't moved back home.
Gould said a buyout probably wouldn't make sense for them. They've been steadily working on their home -- with the help of friends and a contractor -- to make it livable again.

Eligibility questions

While Gould and Ehmke are within one of the five clusters, property owners outside those neighborhoods likely won't get an opportunity to have their flood-damaged homes bought out.
Anyone is invited to express interest in a buyout to city officials, but the city's best chances of getting buyout money for residents is focusing specifically on the targeted areas, Abdelazim said.
"The city won't include them in our letter of interest, unless we find a compelling case," Abdelazim said. "That could undermine the strength of our application. The state has made it very clear there are not enough resources with the needs that are out there."
There is fierce competition from other communities hit by flooding and looking for buyout money, Abdelazim said. Some, like the towns of Conklin and Union, have more experience than Binghamton with the complicated federal buyout program.
This is the first time Binghamton has applied for buyouts, Abdelazim said.
A deadline also looms. The city will need to file a letter of interest to the state and federal government before Feb. 29, Abedalzim said.
Officials are direct-mailing property owners in the five neighborhoods. And the city will schedule workshops for those interested in the buyouts.
Due to the flooding in 2006 and last September, Abdelazim estimated between 50 and 75 properties could eventually be abandoned across the city. At least 400 structures remain without electricity and/or gas service because of flood damage.

Gingrich defends calling Obama 'the food stamp president'

2012-01-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

Gingrich defends calling Obama 'the food stamp president'

Mitt Romney listens as Newt Gingrich makes a point in the

Fox News/Wall Street Journal debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

(Joe Raedle / Getty Images / January 16, 2012)

By James Oliphant

January 16, 2012, 7:37 p.m.

Newt Gingrich, displaying the combativeness that helped him rocket to the top of the GOP field back in November and December, faced off against Fox News commentator Juan Williams at the debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., over his suggestion that impoverished youths take janitorial jobs to learn the value of work.

Williams asked Gingrich if his comments weren't “insulting to all Americans," particularly, he said, black Americans.

Gingrich refused to leaven his past comments, saying that for the amount of money one New York City janitor earns, 30 kids could work. “They’d learn to show up for work,” the former House speaker said. “They could do light janitorial duties.”
PHOTOS: Republican presidential debate

Sparring with Williams, he added, “Only the elites despise earning money.”

Williams, however, was not cowed, asking Gingrich if wasn’t belittling African Americans by suggesting they lacked a work ethic and wondered aloud whether he was unfairly denigrating President Obama by labeling him “the food stamp president.”

The raucous crowd at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center booed lustily at Williams’ question.

“More people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than by any president in American history,” Gingrich retorted. “Now I know among the politically correct, you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.”

The fact that the debate had fallen on Martin Luther King Day was a recurrent theme throughout the evening. Rick Santorum was asked how to reduce poverty in African American communities. He said that the key to avoiding poverty was finding a job, graduating from high school and marrying before having children. He said the Obama administration wasn’t doing enough to promote those goals.

“It’s a huge, huge opportunity for us,” Santorum said.

Homeless make up growing number of California welfare recipients

2012-01-22T12:18:00.002-05:00

Homeless make up growing number of California welfare recipients

Number of CalWorks families without a permanent place to live has grown by 98% in the last five years.

Serena Jones, 2, high-fives L.A. County social worker Ani Muradyan
at the conclusion of a session with the girl's mother, Genivive,
who was seeking housing assistance and job placement.
(Robert Gauthier, Los Angeles Times / December 15, 2011)

By Jason Song, Los Angeles Times

January 16, 2012, 7:44 p.m.

When Genivive Jones lost her job last year and started bouncing between friends' homes and motels with her toddler daughter, she inadvertently joined one of the fastest-growing groups of state welfare recipients: homeless families who receive aid known as CalWorks.

Over the last five years, the number of CalWorks families without a permanent place to live has grown by 98%. That's nearly four times the growth of non-homeless families who are also getting assistance.

The increase shows how difficult it is for people on the lower rungs of the financial ladder to improve their situation in the current tough economy, experts say, especially because the average amount that Los Angeles County families get from the state has shrunk from $560 a month three years ago to $490 last October.

"The largest growth has been at that level of need where people are at the ledge of homelessness," said Michael Arnold, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

Grants could become even smaller if Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget passes. Brown wants to reduce CalWorks by about $1 billion.

"If some of these safety-net programs are cut, it will push a lot of people to homelessness," Arnold said.

Or, as Glendena Stephens, a caseworker who has been with the county for 45 years, put it: "The rents are so high and the grants are so small, it doesn't leave them with hardly anything. I've never seen anything like it."

Jones is fairly typical of CalWorks recipients, who are generally single mothers with young children. The 23-year-old had steady employment with a financial company before being laid off. After her savings ran out, she slept in a car and then lived with a series of friends before deciding she was better off on her own.

Since then, she's been staying at motels in the Gardena area while trying to get by on the $516 she receives each month while searching for work.

Jones has had to make several tough choices, including buying her 2 1/2 -year-old daughter, Serena, a pair of pink Keds while making do herself with a six-pack of socks and a pair of thin rubber flip-flops.

"I make sure she has what she needs," Jones said during a recent meeting with her caseworker, Ani Muradyan.

As Serena colored, Muradyan went over options with Jones, including how to get a credit check and sign up for classes at a community college. Muradyan also scheduled an appointment for Jones at a local shelter.

"Do you think I'll be able to get a job?" Jones asked. "I hear Wal-Mart is hiring."

"That's a good place to start," Muradyan said.

Nearby, other caseworkers were also trying to find jobs for clients.

Raul Pasco emigrated from the Philippines to the United States with his two young daughters — Angela Rose, 4, and Keighdrine Roze, 9 — after being sponsored by his mother, a legal resident. But Pasco, who works in construction, has been unable to find a job and had to move out of his mother's home to a shelter in Lancaster after a family dispute.

Pasco was hoping to earn enough to send money to his girlfriend, who is the mother of his daughters, but "there's no work right now," he said.

Even though there are county offices near the shelter, Pasco takes the train into Los Angeles to meet with his case manager, Cameron De Cree.

"I like him; he works hard," Pasco said.

As De Cree went to find a colleague who had potential leads on jobs, one of Pasco's daughters asked him: "Are you going to get a job today?"

"Not today," Pasco said quietly. "But maybe soon."

Rupert Murdoch turns to Twitter to attack Obama

2012-01-22T12:15:00.000-05:00

Rupert Murdoch turns to Twitter to attack Obama

By Ilaina Jonas

NEW YORK | Sun Jan 15, 2012 5:17pm EST

(Reuters) - Media baron Rupert Murdoch used his new Twitter account this weekend to attack the Obama Administration's opposition to parts of proposed legislation designed to combat Internet piracy.
"So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery," News Corp's chairman and chief executive officer posted on his personal Twitter account Saturday.
Murdoch, whose media empire includes Fox TV, The Wall Street Journal, Fox Studios and the Sun newspaper in Britain, continued with several tweets, attacking Google as the "Piracy leader" for streaming movies free. In later tweets he called Google a "great company."
Google said it did not appreciate Murdoch's comment even after he back-peddled with a compliment.
"This is just nonsense," Samantha Smith, a Google spokesperson, said in an emailed statement.
"Last year we took down 5 million infringing Web pages from our search results and invested more than $60 million in the fight against bad ads. Like many other tech companies, we believe that there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking U.S. companies to censor the Internet."
At issue are the concerns White House officials raised on Saturday about elements in the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) pending in Congress. Google and Facebook already have decried them as heavy-handed and Hollywood studios and music labels say the legislation is needed to save U.S. jobs.
In a blog posting, three advisers to President Barack Obama said they believed the act and similar bills could make businesses on the Internet vulnerable to litigation and harm legal activity and free speech.
"Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small," said the officials, including White House cyber-security czar Howard Schmidt.
The House of Representatives' SOPA bill aims to crack down on online sales of pirated American movies, music or other goods by forcing Internet companies to block access to foreign sites offering material that violates U.S. copyright laws.
U.S. advertising networks could also be required to stop online ads and search engines would be barred from directly linking to websites found to be distributing pirated goods.
Those who support stricter piracy rules reacted strongly to Saturday's White House statement, which darkened prospects for legislation already expected to struggle to clear Congress in an election year.
Schmidt and the other advisers said the Obama administration was ready to work with lawmakers on a narrower, more targeted approach to online piracy to ensure that legitimate businesses -- including start-up companies -- would not be harmed.
Murdoch, who opened his Twitter account this year, has used it to colorfully opine on a number of topics. Tweeting last week, Murdoch praised New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's latest proposal to overhaul the city's public schools, but referred to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo as "chicken Cuomo."
He also admitted in a post to his company's mishandling of social network MySpace, which News Corp bought in 2005 for $580 million. Today the site is nearly irrelevant.
"...we screwed up in every way possible.." Murdoch posted last week.
(Reporting By Ilaina Jonas, with additional reporting by Caren Bohan in Washington; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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Google Privacy Policy Update Challenged by Lawmakers

Google Privacy Policy Update Challenged by Lawmakers

Google is under fire in Congress for its new privacy policy changes to unify user information from 60 Web services under one single policy.

Google FAQ

FAQ

Should I take the time to read the new Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service?

What’s different about the new Privacy Policy?

What’s different about the new Google Terms of Service?

What’s staying the same with Google’s approach to privacy?

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Google's New Terms of Service

Google Terms of Service

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7:10 PM, Jan. 13, 2012 |
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